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

Since this is to be a spiritual operation in every sense of the word, I will not bother you with material details save to say that you will, of course, be provided with a place to sleep and will be fed at our expense during your stay at the Hill. Our fare is plain, but outsiders tell us it’s good and nourishing. We have our own bees.

The dates set for the Conference are August 7–12. (Please try not to arrive before Aug. 7.) I trust you’ll give this invitation every consideration. We want you with us, Mr. O’Connell. The world needs reviewers of your stripe. I might add that a stock of published work by the staff will be on sale during the Conference and the public will be strongly urged to buy. Expecting to hear from you in the very near future, I am,

Sincerely yours,

Father Wilfred, OSC

Rev. W. Bestudik, OSB

J. J. O’Connell

R.R. 2

St Joseph, Minnesota

P.S. His Excellency Bishop Bullinger has given us reason to hope for an address from him in connection with a Field Mass.

Shanedling Building, room 5, next door to your friendly Household Finance Corporation

As was the case in 1956, the prospect of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, in all their televised grotesqueness, drove Jim to purchase a television for the Powers household.

JACK CONROY

412 First Avenue South

St Cloud, Minnesota

July 6, 1960

Dear Jack,

Good of you to write, and, yes, I’m still here, two or three blocks away from where I was when I last wrote: old rockin’ chair’s got me, you might say. That doesn’t mean I’ve deteriorated physically : I am ready to serve, if elected, but I don’t expect it to come, if at all, until about the 28th ballot. I hope you can control your delegation. We need an arthur in the White House — and a Catholic arthur at that. I will not take second place. It occurs to me Kennedy is an arthur, and I don’t want you to think that’s what I mean. I am nonpolitical and always have been. I was laughed at when I suggested an Earl Long — Hubert Humphrey ticket some months ago (when Humphrey was still running for president), but it begins to look better now, doesn’t it? Enough of that, except to say that I wish I had the price of a TV set, for I do enjoy the sight of those cotton-pickin’ faces at conventions.

I wasn’t surprised to read about your trip turning out as it did. It seems to me I’ve had other letters, in the past, from you to that effect. Why do you travel, Jack? People are pretty much the same all over. I am writing from my downtown office, in the heart of things, and don’t have your letter, but I remember you did what you could to encourage me by quoting from the TLS and Bernard Malamud, for which I thank you. I feel more and more like a back number. It has been some time since I saw myself included among the important arthurs of our day, but then that happens to the best of us, doesn’t it? Probably I have achieved what immortality I’ll have. I continue with the novel, parts of which have appeared in The New Yorker , and hope to finish it this summer, when my advance royalty payments run out. There are times when I wish I’d gone into oceanography as a youth and were presently on an expedition somewhere. I think a lot of money as I grow older, and as my children do. […]

All for now. Write.

Jim

Journal, August 4, 1960

Saw Bishop Sheen on TV the night before last, for the first time I can remember—“Why the Gloom in Modern Literature?” Appalling spectacle. Obviously knows little and cares less about the subject. Down on Graham Greene — who, it seems to me, uses Sheen’s palette. No Americans mentioned, though for a moment I thought he meant me when he pronounced Proust as PROWST. He wrote an odd mixture of names on the blackboard he uses (after writing JMJ1 at the top): Beauvoir, Sagan,2 and Camus — only the last was written and pronounced “Le Camus.” Only names to be mentioned favorably were Claudel3 and T. S. Eliot. They, he said, had their hands against the dike, holding back the tide of gloom. He is the personification of gloom himself, Sheen, and it depresses the hell out of me to think of his success, considering what he does to earn it. “Ham what I am”—all the way. I had thought Fr Urban beneath him. Not so, by a long shot. The other way around. That voice, those gestures, and those red eyes. All ham and pride.

The 1960 expansion of both the National Football League and baseball’s American League brought the Vikings and the Twins (the former Washington Senators) to Minnesota, each playing its first season in 1961.

HARVEY EGAN

August 10, 1960

Dear Fr Egan,

As I see it, our team could be called many things — Eskimos, after the old Duluth entry in the NFL, but that would call undue attention to our climate, as would Zeros. Mosquitoes, though apt, would call attention to an aspect of our life that has been overstressed. Vikings wouldn’t be fair to our whole population. Likewise Swedes. Millers has special connotations that wouldn’t appeal to some of us. What it comes down to, in my opinion, is Lakers and Huskies and Maroons. The first and last have much to recommend them, but historically smack of failure. Looks like Huskies, therefore, to this observer, and I am giving that name my endorsement. However, I would support Lakers and Maroons, particularly the latter if A. A. Stagg would be available as coach. Any thoughts on the subject?

All well here.

Lack Tux and Will Not Travel … so come up and see us sometime.

Jim

Plowboys, do you think? Snowmen? Reefers?Northerners? Maybe you can give a thing like this too much thought, but Reidar did say recently that we ought to start turning it over in our minds. We now lead the nation in turkey production. Turkeys? Gobblers?

HUSKIES CLAW GIANTS 21–7

SNOWMEN ICE STEELERS 14–0

FROZEN TURKEYS BOW TO BEARS 28–21 (game played in snow)

Journal, September 19, 1960

If I were to begin another book today, I don’t know whether it would be the Movement Book (beginning with Bellocian walks and eating and drinking à la George) or NAB .4 Former seems more interesting at the moment — perhaps because of news that Leonard Doyle is planning to leave next summer for other parts: one more loss, or one more clinker dropping through the grate.

HARVEY EGAN

412 First Avenue South

October 10, 1960

Dear Fr Egan,

[…] As for our team being called the Vikings, I am hoping to see something negative on this in Archbishop Brady’s column soon; not representative of the whole community, etc. Since my name is Norman, I do not feel entirely out of it. […]

Jim

CHARLES AND SUSAN SHATTUCK

Christmas 1960

Dear Chuck and Suzie,

Sitting up here in the office, contemplating the past and so on, I thought of you and seemed to remember that I’d written to you last year about this time, perhaps on this day. I find I’m worse off this year than last at this time, novel within three chapters of being finished, but nothing in the bank, advance royalties at an end, no stories out or in the works, and one week more in this office — the building to come down then. I am the last one here, and there wouldn’t be heat but for a fly-by-night toy store downstairs (formerly Walgreen’s agency) and the barbershop in the basement. Not so long ago I moved among lawyers and insurance agents and their secretaries here on the second floor. I don’t look forward to finding another place. There is something about the J. F. Powers Company that doesn’t gladden the hearts of businessmen with offices to rent. I pay $15 a month here and work out of a Victorian easy chair and off a low table — and, though I am perhaps one of the better writers in town, there isn’t the interest here that there might be in me or my work. I’ll let you know next year how it all turned out. Betty is well, though desperate with caring for our children, and would like another go at Ireland. I don’t know. I tend to think in terms of great sums of money rather than far-off places as the answer to our problems. I realize this letter is all about me, but then what do I know about you? Or anybody?