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

St Cloud, Minnesota

December 2, 1953

Dear Cal,

Glad to have your letter. I want to thank you for your efforts in my behalf, with regard to the $3,000 grant from Iowa. I wish I could do something for you, someday. […]

I have looked up Duxbury on the Mass. map in my Britannica (1890), and I see it’s on the sea and that the “Telegraph Cable to France” is close by on the coast. I think your idea of going there and living and reading is wonderful. I know those 1937 Packards. I think they were the last cars — the following years got more and more away from the Rolls-Royce front — made in this country. I was going to buy one in 1949, having sold my car which you remember so vividly. It was a dark Pullman green and had a trunk rack in back and a mohair steering wheel, which showed that the previous owner was the careful sort, but I didn’t buy it. I hope to ride in yours and trust that Elizabeth does all the driving. I think you need a battery, a new one, if you’re not getting out these mornings, or maybe the connecting wires are afflicted with verdigris. You’ve got to live with your car, Cal, and whatever you do, don’t laugh at it, don’t talk against it. […]

Do write.

Jim

JACK CONROY

509 First Avenue South

St Cloud, Minnesota

March 17, 1954

Dear Jack,

[…] No, Jack, I’m not running a tavern here. I do keep a little Hamm’s in the house, though. If you ask me, it’s the best of the better beers. But I seldom drink anything. I mean that. I don’t know why. No proper company, I guess. I go down to the bus station and get the Chicago Tribune , for kicks, and it always reassures me that I was right in leaving Chicago. The local paper reassures me that I’d do well to leave here too. The truth is, Jack, that my heart is often in the highlands a-chasing a deer. By that, I mean I don’t see any future for me here. I think I’d do better in Ireland. Where I was happier — with the newspapers (London ones, which I subscribe to here), plays at the Abbey and Gate, which I could afford, and horse racing. Also, I didn’t feel so different from most people there. Here I sometimes look askance at the life I lead, wonder how long it’ll be before the system catches up with me. I find, too, as I grow older, I don’t care for the writers-project way of life, if you know what I mean; going around taking what’s left by my betters, the salesmen of this world, the food they won’t eat, the houses or apartments they won’t live in, the cars they won’t drive. I don’t want to get in and pitch with them, or against them. I just want to go away. I must say you would’ve enjoyed the sight of me in Ireland, having my morning coffee before the fire, unfolding my Irish Times , listening to music from the BBC and from my stomach, full of good bacon and toast and marmalade; or at Leopardstown Racecourse; or walking along the sea …

Meanwhile, we’re happy with this house, the oldest one in St Cloud, run-down though it is. It is owned by two maiden ladies who let us live here rent-free. We keep it up, heated, lighted. But when I leave the house — there’s quite a library upstairs — or turn on the radio, I don’t think I’m long for this world, Jack. Sometimes I think I should maybe give up entirely and install television. In Ireland a voice seems to be calling, though, and I think I should prepare myself to answer it ultimately. But how to live? I’ve thought on historical novels, but there’s nothing in my pedigree or early form to indicate I can go the distance, writing them; I can’t even read them. Sexy novels? What then would happen to this reputation I’ve built up over the years as America’s cleanest Lay Author — I wish somebody would do an article which would bring out that aspect of my work. You just may be the one, Jack, with your feeling for tracts, the eternal virtues so often sneered at in our modern day. Best to you and yours.

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

April 14, 1954

Dear Fr Egan,

[…] Nothing happens here. Well, two visitors. Ammon Hennacy2 a couple of weeks ago, and Sean O’Faolain (with George) last weekend. Ammon was interesting, I thought, and more impressive than I expected him to be. He reminded me of Fr Roy,3 his concern with sound doctrine (sound or not) and always counting the numbers who heard him and appeared to be very interested. He had a big meeting — Mary Humphrey’s word for it — at St John’s, thanks to Fr Emeric,4 I think, who has an idea of a university. Sean was here overnight, with George, and we had a good night of it, and a day among friends here, on the run: Doyles, Hyneses, St John’s. George brought Sean to Newman,5 you know, and next in line are Fr Hughes (the historian)6 and Fr John Courtney Murray.7 It seems to me Newman, under Fr Cowley8 and George, is doing more, is doing more to bring in worthwhile people than any of the colleges hereabouts. You know the creeps and Swiss bell ringers the Catholic colleges get. […]

Take it easy.

Jim

Theodore Roethke, Yaddo, 1947

Jim accepted an invitation to travel to the West Coast to speak at the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and Reed College in Portland. He chose the topic “reality in fiction.” (“The writer lowers himself into the pit of his experience and imagination, and for a time all is black and hopeless. Then the lines suggest themselves, just a little of themselves showing.”) “For this I’m getting $1,500,” he told Father Egan, “but I continue to doubt that it’s enough.” During the six-week trip he visited Theodore Roethke in Seattle and also traveled to Victoria, British Columbia; San Francisco; Fresno, where he saw Ted LeBerthon; Los Angeles; and finally Albuquerque to see his family.

BETTY, KATHERINE, MARY, AND BOZ POWERS

Hotel Edmond Meany

University District

Seattle 5

April 23, 1954

Dear Betty, Girls, and Boy,

[…] Seattle and the country around here remind me of nowhere else I’ve been. It is the sea, I guess, which makes for all flowers, vines, blooming trees. The grass is green as in Ireland. The homes, though this is a smaller place than Mpls, seem much better, and there seem to be more of them. It must be the sea. The sky has clouds; the green has depth. It is close to heaven, the look and feel of it, and I regret some that I wasn’t born here. Then, despite all the rawness of buildings and signs and streets — what you see everywhere, in every city — it might be a place to think of as home. I read one perfectly wonderful story while here and am asking the author — a doctor’s wife — to send it to Henry. I think she might very well be a real writer. I see The Captain’s Paradise is down the street and may go to it tonight. […] Love to you.

Jim

BETTY POWERS

Aboard Princess Marguerite 1

Sunday, 10:00 a.m. [April 25, 1954]

Dear Betty,

I am sitting in a smaller, grubbier version of the lounge of the America . I am surrounded by my compatriots — playing cards, reading the Sunday papers, sleeping upright. […] I can’t remember seeing so many bad neckties in the past. I had thought the worst was over, but the science and industry patterns are very evident here. Out on the deck looking at the water, it’s easy to recall Ireland. […]

I got up at 6:30 this morning. I had dinner and quite a bit to drink at Ted’s2 place last night. I was drinking Jameson’s since he got it in for me (as I got it for Sean). His wife, Beatrice, cooked a very fine meal. Steak — the best I’ve ever tasted. It was very thick, but the steak sauce (Ted’s) is what made it. Beatrice had a sauce on asparagus that was very good — what asparagus needs to offset its wateriness. It is made out of ham fat or drippings. I had a very fine time — laughing as I hadn’t in years. […]