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

Speaking of Sputnik, the only people to mention it to me have been the barber and a shopgirl; the former thought we probably knew as much about it as the Russians but just hadn’t put what we knew to proper use, and the latter wondered if I’d seen it pass over yet. I hadn’t, and haven’t. What time is it on ?

I confess I was glad to hear things have been “grim” for you these last four weeks. Misery loves company — and it’s hard to believe one doesn’t lead the list these last weeks. […]

Times are considered very hard in Ireland, much unemployment, and I can believe it. On the other hand, an Englishman who runs a café in Dalkey told me that nobody suffers in Ireland, not as he understands the term. The hardware man (Allie Evans) in Greystones said quite a few people here had left for America, mostly for Canada, but that he thought they’d be sorry. I agreed with him. We thought if a man could make a living at all, he’d be happier here. Anyone leaving Greystones for anywhere else will miss the scenery, I know. There are moments when the sun, filtered by the clouds, shines on the sea and on stone and on the green in such a way that I wonder if such moments aren’t enough to make up for everything. […]

Jim

At the end of November, the Powers family moved into Ard na Fairrge, a decaying Georgian house on Mount Salus in Dalkey, county Dublin. Betty discovered to her and Jim’s horror that she was pregnant again.

ROBERT LOWELL AND ELIZABETH HARDWICK

Ard Na Fairrge

Mount Salus

Dalkey, County Dublin

December 3, 1957

Dear Cal and Elizabeth,

Glad to have your good letter and late word on your fellow immortal (this is a reference to Ted Roethke). I happened to hear from Buck Moon about the same time and passed the news (about Ted) onto him.5 Buck was coming out of some kind of tunnel himself, but he didn’t say what kind. I hadn’t heard from Buck for years. He is now working for Curtis Brown, the agent.

This house we’re in now is an improvement on the other. Scabrous Georgian, noble views of the sea, turf in the fireplaces, room for the children. Unfortunately, we aren’t in the mood to appreciate it, having experienced some terrible misgivings about expatriation and yet with no place to live at home — and hating it where we were, a good old house.

Have no friends, have no plans for any. I may have to work. Either that or fritter and go down. I’m glad to hear you’re operating as a poet again. You’ll be better for the layoff, I think, but I am also hoping you will continue your autobiography, which struck me as the real thing, in your best comic vein and more.

Yes, I’ve always enjoyed reading Wilson,6 only disappointed when he touches upon the spiritual and sounds like one of the little Blue Books published by Haldeman-Julius,7 but even that, in a man otherwise so perceptive, is refreshing. I only hope he never gets religion on that level and daresay it isn’t likely he will. I shook his hand in the New Yorker offices once and admired a tweed coat he was wearing and his overall grizzled look. The Scotch in him.

All for now. Write when you feel like it. I hope Boston still interests Elizabeth. I think you’re right to be there, where you belong. There is a man living next door to us in a Georgian morgue, teaches at Trinity, high up in the Church of Ireland (layman), and I don’t know whether he’s the poet or not.8 Seems to me Faber publishes a poet by the name of Stanford, his name. Everybody (one or two people) has said we should enjoy his company. I spotted him this morning sitting in the window on the second floor, the open window facing out to sea (and England), reading a book, and looking like somebody in Henry James, or my idea of same.

Jim

DON AND MARY HUMPHREY

Ard Na Fairrge

Mount Salus

Dalkey, County Dublin

December 7, 1957

Dear Don and Mary,

A little slow in replying this time. One week ago, about to the minute — it is 3:15 p.m. — we moved into this house. In the past week we have gradually ordered our lives, though they are still rather chaotic by our standards in St Cloud. We are realizing more and more that we had a system of a sort there, though it was not satisfactory; it will take some time to equal it here — and the question before us is — is it ever possible in a rented house, subject to an owner’s decisions? I think the answer is no, and when you have a lot of children, it is important not to have to start over at intervals. I realize this is something you, and others who own their own homes, have known for some time. My trouble is not wanting to settle for the life that seems to go with home owning, but I am coming to see the error of my ways, having paid and paid with these false starts and find the latest one harder than the one before it, right on back to Avon and St Paul. All this is not a prelude to our making a home in Ireland; I don’t even mean that we’d like to do that. We wouldn’t in our present mood, which is very odd. To us, anyway. We have been so busy with the material side of existence that we haven’t been able to enjoy the advantages of living here. I get up in the morning, and it’s almost an hour before I get the fires going, since we were burning only turf until yesterday; now we have some coal for the fireplace in the kitchen. […]

My study has two impossible chairs, which we continue to sit in, however, and the best fireplace in the house, especially made for burning turf; there are two holes on either side, toward the front of it, connected with tile pipe which runs a few feet through the hall, and into an entryway from which it sucks cold air, just naturally does it, and this blows on the turf, making it burn beautifully. Turf makes a very pleasant fuel, but most of these fireplaces are too small for it, being designed for coal. Turf has to have room to be spread, and you have to introduce the fresh pieces to the rear of the fireplace, pull forward the hot ones. The odor is nice, and a good thing it is, for we get some very strong, wayward breezes up here so high, so close to the sea. I mention this because I’ve just come from the studio, eyes streaming, having had to transfer the turf from it to my study and give up on the fire in the studio for today; I think the chimney is too low for the wind we have now. […] All for now. […]

Jim

Journal, December 7, 1957

We have had a thorough shaking up. We no longer know what’s best for us. I don’t anyway — and this is a startling statement for me to make. Here it is past midnight now, and I am sitting here in the study, with the radio playing, alone. I might be back in St Cloud, St Paul, Milwaukee, Cape Cod, Greystones, or Avon — ten years ago — for all the change there has been in my habits. The radio station is German — but so it was six years ago in Greystones. I am not unhappy at this time of day — except now and then. But when the days pass as they have lately, I do feel the pressure of waste … This is the time to get on with my work. It will be hard, unless conditions change — unless we can find a way to order our family life — to make the months ahead mean anything for my work. Betty’s probable pregnancy is the final turn of the screw — worse than ever before, this one, in these circumstances. We must somehow manage. We aren’t far from the rocks, must somehow negotiate them. I have to be careful, to keep control.

BIRDIE AND AL STROBEL; ART AND MONA WAHL; BERTHA SEBERGER

Ard na Fairrge

Mount Salus

Dalkey, County Dublin

Tuesday morning [Before December 13, 1957]

Dear Birdie and All,

While Betty is doing the dishes, I’ll add a few lines to this letter that we keep neglecting to mail. Today there is a full gale blowing, and my study, which faces the sea, is taking in a certain amount of wind and water: the rain gets in somehow. But the kitchen and playroom are warmer, which may account for the presence there of Betty and the boys. For two days we couldn’t have a fire in the playroom. The wind was wrong, and the place filled up with smoke. So it goes: all difficulties we can put up with but would not want to do so for a lifetime, I think. […]