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

I am, sir, as always.

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

Trenarren Hotel

Greystones, County Wicklow

November 15, 1963

Dear Fr Egan,

[…] After three weeks in London, the proprietors of this small hotel descended upon us, taking up residence in the wing where I had been assigned a room as an office. Nothing was said by way of explanation. And since in the lease there is a clause saying the proprietor might have access to two rooms on our side of the hotel, both kept locked, at any time, we thought at first that he was simply taking advantage of this clause (it was explained to us by Sean O’F. that the proprietor might exercise this privilege for one, two, or, at most, three nights in the four months we’d be tenants), but said proprietor, a drunk, and his wife, a coarse-grained golfer, have been here since October 26, with dog, which we looked after while they were in London.

Well, since nothing was said and the situation is so ridiculous, proving more so by stages, it wasn’t until yesterday that I decided to go to the house agent who contracted our lease and say I wanted out if we could find another place before our time was up here. […] Sean was outraged when he heard the proprietors were in residence, which fact we managed to keep from him until the other day, and wanted to throw them out, but I forbade him to get involved: the worst thing about such a deal is the wear and tear on your mind, just thinking about it, I mean. […]

We went up to see Sir Tyrone Guthrie in Co. Monaghan last week and spent a day with him, his wife, and Tanya Moisevitch, the stage designer, who was staying with them and working on paper models for next season’s sets. (She’d like to lay hands on 500 fox furs for Volpone .) We liked all three of them, and Sir T. said he’d be happy to have me spend the period of my Ford Fellowship in Mpls if the foundation (Ford) approved the idea, either for the coming season or the one after. I have written to the Ford people asking that I be given this assignment with the date left open [depending on] the housing situation in Ireland and the direction taken by my work, if you’ll pardon the expression.

This, too, I’d wish you to keep to yourself, as I don’t want to beat the gun so far as the Ford Foundation is concerned — for all I know they make a point of sending people to places they’d rather not go, like Texas, in which case I’m afraid I’d have to say no and claim my rights to your car prematurely and go into the taxi business. Let’s face it. I’ll have to find work pretty soon, work that I can do until I shuffle off this mortal coil. My fast one is gone. They are hitting my other stuff. Remember Frog Maranda.8 Remember Old Blue.

And now, with a sigh of relief, to your problems. 1. Let the sisters run the school. 2. Try to be out even more, if possible. 3. Don’t fight Frank9—even in his sleep he talks against those who oppose him (and God). 4. Change your position at Met Stadium, get out from under those echoing steel tiers and up into the sky where you can see the countryside. 5. Moderate your interest in pro football. 6. Chicken out in the interracial area. (Pope John is dead.) 7. Pray for Gene McCarthy. 8. Pray for me.

Anon.

Jim

JOE AND JODY O’CONNELL

Trenarren Hotel

Greystones, County Wicklow

November 18, 1963

Dear Joe and Jody,

We were very glad to have your letter on Saturday and to hear of the sales of the prints. You don’t really say, but I suspect you have been having hard times, and the business with George hit you very hard: he is my friend, but I must say he has a way of handling people which has made him a lot of enemies.10 He has always wanted to play the grand patron, and you have to give him credit for imagination there anyway, but he hasn’t had enough money to pull it off — and will have less now than he’s been accustomed to in recent years, now that he is pastor of a parish that won’t support itself, let alone support the Newman Club, or so I’m told. I’m sure he’ll come through where you’re concerned, which I know still leaves out the time element, the big when. […]

If you really want to know what kind of dump we’re in, see Fr Walter. He was here at the hotel, in the doggy lounge, and he also used the chain-driven toilet. Tell him I said it was all right to talk. […]

Betty, as usual, is in Dublin. I don’t know what she does there, but as long as I don’t find any lipstick on her collar, I won’t worry: you know how it is, Joe, when you’re married to a woman who smokes cigars. […]

November 20

[…] Sometime soon I should write vividly of our new life in the Old World. I know you expect that. It is as Betty says in her letter, though — very dull, St Cloud without comfort and without friends, but then I expected it would be. As a writer, I am even less here, if possible — have yet to see a copy of my novel in a bookstore. I suppose it would be the same in Paris, where the novel has just been published, or Italy. We are sick of The Irish Times , though it seems to be the conscience of all Ireland, just tired of the daily fodder: Will there be a general election in the new year? Will the government fall because of the so-called turnover tax (2½% added onto the price of everything)? Will the Grand Canal, one of the neglected beauties of Dublin, be filled with sewage pipes and closed up? Will the exhibit of Irish goods at Lord & Taylor in New York stimulate exports? It is like party designation and industries for the Iron Range in The Minneapolis Tribune . You just get tired.

The future […] doesn’t seem to be any clearer today. One regrets the loss of time, time in which one might have worked (but probably wouldn’t have anyway), but having had very little choice (so it still appears), one can’t very well regret the decision to do what we’ve done. I have learned nothing I didn’t know about traveling with children — or about the impossibility of living with them in other people’s houses. Were it not for them, we wouldn’t be here, which is not to say we are martyrs, Betty and I, but would-be survivors. Last night I had to remove the radio from Katherine’s bed (listening to Radio Luxembourg, which is as close to WJON as you can get here). So we don’t expect a complete cure, but just hope to give the girls more of a perspective. The young men look positively cretinous here, and all dress like burglars. And yet … but as Betty says, there is no more depressing sight on earth than Irish snazzy.

She also said at breakfast that there was some talk at the girls’ school of a tour of Greece in the summer, and my first thought was: “Summer! My God! Will we still be here , living like this then ?” Why not? For years I have lived on the hope that Time would, just by passing, someday, somehow, provide an out (I do not mean death, or at least didn’t), but how wrong I’ve been. It is still my best bet, though, such as it is. What do I want? I can no longer describe it except in general terms — a million dollars, or even fifty thousand — and thus I leave the decision to later. The motto of the J. F. Powers Company is Shoot high and don’t miss , but it is one I can only hope to achieve in my work, if there, and seems more and more out of the question in my life, in which, alas, I still take an interest. So much for today’s gospel. Just trying to help you understand us. […]

Jim

LEONARD DOYLE

Trenarren Hotel

Greystones, County Wicklow

November 29, 1963

Dear Leonard,

[…] We were floored by the crimes in Texas. I realized I’d been too hard on Kennedy in my own mind and hadn’t given him credit for using the best kind of people, to the extent that this is possible (it isn’t possible in the arts), to run the ship of state. Ireland and England were in deep mourning. Our PP, perhaps the only liturgist in Ireland in communion with Collegeville, only stalked the aisles during the memorial Mass on Tuesday, commenting on the Mass and whatever else occurred to him, and in the end praised Kennedy for four things and said we should write them down when we left the church: “edgication, self -edgication, social-minded, and parish-minded.” On a call recently, he told Betty that there was only one place in the U.S. that he wanted to visit and that was Minnesota because of St John’s, the liturgical capital of the world. Even if I weren’t anti-laical (and of course anticlerical), I think I’d give thanks for the old guard in Rome, after divine worship with our PP calling the shots from the pulpit — a kind of triple dialogue Mass, celebrant and people patiently waiting to get a word in edgewise and the latter urged at the same time to speak up, say the prayers in any language they please, and, for the love of God, to pull themselves together and try to be more edgicated.11 […]