J. Powers - Suitable Accommodations - An Autobiographical Story of Family Life - The Letters of J. F. Powers, 1942-1963

Let me know what the sales were for your book.7 (That’s what writers talk about, incidentally, and you asked.) Got another in the works? Same publisher? Any nibbles from others? Who’s your agent? Any personal troubles? Have to drink to write? I haven’t had a Guinness for a week. Just a little John Jameson. Write.

Jameson

HARVEY EGAN

Greystones

May 11, 1952

Dear Fr Egan,

I enclose an advance complimentary copy of The Children’s Mass Book . I hope that after you have had the opportunity to read it, you will write to me. I value your opinion and look forward to hearing from you. The editor is my PP. Perhaps we could work out an exchange plan: you buy his book and he’ll buy yours. By the way, how are sales?

Haven’t heard from you in some time but suppose you are busy with your yellow slips.8 Did you ever think of getting linen ones, to stand up better under the constant shuffling? I could get you a fair discount on linen. […]

Do you like the new Commonweal format? I object to that arrow ending up at 15c. All for now. You owe me one, so I won’t try to make this more impressive.

Seamus

That May, aside from receiving an exhausting visit from Garrelts and another priest, Jim saved a boy from drowning and was awarded a “certificate of bravery.” Betty described the incident in a letter home: “Some little boys ran up carrying a life preserver and said, ‘A boy’s after falling in the ocean.’ … So Jim found himself standing half in the water on a ledge of rock, holding on to the boy in the life preserver and the waves trying to splash them both out into the ocean. And he had to keep his teeth shut tight because he had his pipe in his mouth and no hand to take it out … There were no end of women and retired men and boys around but no one strong enough to pull them out until the guards came, and also the milkman. (There is nothing that can happen in Greystones without the milkman being there with the first of them.)”

HARVEY EGAN

Greystones

June 3, 1952

Dear Fr Egan,

[…] The Irish — here and everywhere — worry too much about what is written about them. Their favorite reading is writing about them, any chance reference, anything that doesn’t please. It’s all in Joyce, the petty chauvinism, the chemist who wants us to buy Irish soap (which is not very good soap), the piercing look following the question, how do you like Ireland? I like Ireland, but I don’t like these little boosters. Tell them that.

Well, George and Fr Dillon arrived, and we had a fast three days in a hired car, Limerick, Galway, Mullingar races, evening at Sean O’Faolain’s. Our guests left for the Continent … and we went to bed for three days to recover from the rush. George, it turns out, is a tourist with a vengeance, picks up with everybody, and finds out more in three days than we have in six months. They went to the races in civvies, though priests were everywhere in black and white, and the touts called George “the Yank.” […]

Fr Fennelly will be glad to hear you approve his book. He should be back from Barcelona any day. Before he left, he made it clear to the congregation that he was going there to “suffer,” in case, I guess, anyone should get the idea that he was going off on a holiday. Said he couldn’t stand the heat, had no accommodations, would just have to take his chances. I was amused but not impressed by this, remembering his remark last fall that he’d always wanted to go to Spain, having been everywhere else he’d wanted to go — no desire to see the U.S. — but then that’s the Irish way, isn’t it? I do the same thing myself.

Hump9 is still putting out that Lenin-Tolstoi jive. I think he fell on his head sometime in the Thirties. And something stopped inside, turning him into an LP record. Ah, well. When I think of going back, I have to think of going back to Hump — I do think he misses me, is perhaps the only one who does — and I just don’t know if that’s what I want. We are pilgrims only, but since the trip’s quite long, I tend to look around for suitable accommodations. I am desireless. There’s no place anymore that strikes me as the place for me. This is no reflection on Ireland, since I never meant to make this my permanent abode, but on my condition, which is not the condition of most: most can still dream of somewhere else, you of your next year’s garden or a parish in St Paul — I’m just speaking in a manner of speaking, I don’t want to hear of your contentment in Beardsley. You won’t deny, however, that you have a passion for farming equipment, manure, your yellow slips. Me, I have no desires. There’s nothing to give up. Is this perfection?

[…]

Please write.

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

Greystones

July 5, 1952

Dear Fr Egan,

Well, here it is Saturday noon, and your gift has come — three days early for my birthday — and already I’m three sheets to the wind. Betty has her hands full keeping the kids out of the room, for they sense something is up, and I guess she’s right, not wanting them to see their old man in such a condition, having Smucker’s taken.

Father Fennelly was overwhelmed by your acceptance and approval of his prayer book. I let him see your letter, and where you say it’s fortunate we are to have a literate PP, he says: “He must mean literary.” No, I say, he means literate. “Why, that means to be able to read, surely he doesn’t mean that. No, he must mean literary. I can understand that. Ha, ha,” he laughs, at your reference to Sunday as the day on which you count the money. “These Americans! He must mean literary.” No, I think he means what he says — literate. “Oh, not at all. Literary is what he means. Just a slip of the typewriter. He must mean literary.” I don’t think so. “Oh, no doubt of it.” I say nothing. This is the man just back from Barcelona, the Eucharistic Congress, where he met the Spanish people, stayed right with them, in fact, in the same house with some, and they found him so different from their own clergy. “Yes, he means literary. The e should be a y , that’s all.” You know, Father, I think he meant to write literary where he wrote literate. “Oh, no doubt of it. Well, that’s pretty good, getting to see a letter like this. You have a typewriter. Make me a copy.” Just keep it. And so, after a while, I got him to keep your letter, and yesterday Betty met him in the street, and his printer hadn’t understood all you said—“Here, take a look at this if you think you understand the English language”—but he got the general idea, the e in that one word should be a y , of course, and there’s no doubt that you’ve made Fr Fennelly happy — happy as any other author would be at being well received by the critics. I gave him a copy of your pamphlet, and perhaps you’ll be hearing about it from him. I can’t help thinking of other great literary friendships, Flaubert and George Sand, Knox and Waugh, the Brownings. […]

We saw the Ardagh chalice — pretty uninspiring, I thought — and the Book of Kells, also disappointing. It’s at Trinity, the university founded by the first Elizabeth and now off-limits to Catholic students except by special permission, which is part of the present archbishop’s policy — just when the Catholics were beginning to dominate it, according to Sean O’Faolain. He told us — this when George was here, when we visited him at his home — of a priest, an old man who, speaking of the Book of Kells and where, alas, it had come to rest, said to the congregation, “If there was a man among you, you’d go down there and — have a look at it.” […]

I have no advice for you, with regard to getting the people to come up with it. Hy Weber, in Quincy, used to take 50c bets, and since I was just a lad then, with little to lose, I was glad that he did. […]