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

Reading these letters, I found myself becoming sad and occasionally angry at what could be described as a folie à deux. What really shocked me was seeing more clearly what my mother had taken upon herself in joining her life to this man’s. Jim had warned her repeatedly before they were married not to expect an ordinary life (“sometimes I get to thinking you don’t know me at all, don’t know what you’re getting into, and if you do, you think changes can be made which, as a matter of fact, won’t be made”). But Betty, who loved Jim and believed that he was an exceptional being, a true artist, also believed that he would be rewarded as such if only he would knuckle down and stop wasting time. He wouldn’t or couldn’t, but she did.

Betty wrote almost every day on a strict schedule, hoping to bring in some money — which she did, though nothing like what the situation required. She published a number of stories in magazines, including The New Yorker , and in 1969 her one novel appeared, Rafferty & Co . Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux while Jim was trying desperately to get out of a multibook contract with the despised Doubleday, it was based in a gentle way, far too gentle, I would say, on life in Ireland with a man something like Jim. Aside from that, she cooked every meal from scratch and sewed most of our clothes; she went to her parents for aid; she scrimped, rationed, and cobbled together the wherewithal for our survival.

But to return to Jim’s letters. In the end, their wit and drollery and festive turns of phrase won me over. A distance developed between me, the person actually present in the predicament the letters describe, and me, the reader. And indeed, in selecting the letters to tell this story, I increasingly felt I was bringing order to a situation where there was little. With that came satisfaction and a certain amount of peace.

My sister Jane, on the other hand, found reading the letters more troubling. She was bowled over by the early ones, by Jim’s expressions of love for our mother. But the feeling aroused by the whole twenty-one-year run of them was one of overwhelming, inalterable sadness. “All that energy, all those plans, all that crazy idealism in the beginning: it somehow turned in on itself to make something — our family, our way of life — that was always contrary and constricted. There are hints of JFP’s truculence in the early letters, and they make me uneasy and unhappy, as they pierce through the beautiful fabric of his prose like little daggers. Also, he was so hopelessly impractical: How could it ever have turned out well?”

The last word will be Jim’s, from Ireland (again), some seven years further down the road. We find him having recently acquired a pair of “Tall Man” pajamas, now transformed into yet another emblem of the human condition of which he was always an appreciative victim.

Greystones, County Wicklow

August 23, 1970

Dear Fred and Romy,

[…] I was interested to see [from Betty’s letter] what it is we are doing, or will be doing (finishing our books and making a pile and coming back), as we don’t often discuss such matters and I often wonder what it is we are doing, or will be doing. As for lonely, well, all men are lonely. I am myself lonely, always have been, and never more than when in my new pajamas. I think of myself then as the last man on earth, as Tall Man. My sleeves extend four inches beyond my fingertips, one of my legs is, for some reason, narrower, the stitching overlapped for a few inches before rejoining the main stitching, like a service road, and I bag in the back, I’m told. However, I am well and working, and hope you are the same.

+ TALL MAN

Introduction

1 From an unpublished manuscript in the hands of Rosemary Hugo Fielding.

1. Fortunately, I am under no obligation to earn a living wage

1 Published in Accent (Winter 1943).

2 Bill was attending the Harvard Business School.

3 William Fifield (1916–1987), the writer and editor.

4 Published in Accent (Autumn 1943).

5 Sister Mariella Gable was compiling an anthology of Catholic fiction, Our Father’s House (1945), in which she included “The Trouble” and “Lions, Harts, Leaping Does.”

6 Jack Howe.

7 Ramona Rawson (1920–1999), former girlfriend, who did not show deference to George Garrelts.

8 Garrelts wrote to Jim (November 17, 1942), “A stand is about to be taken in re Ramona Rawson … You are not in love, are not likely to be, and cannot ever abidingly or successfully be. My evidence is detailed. She would not darn your socks. She would not accompany us to Mass. She sat sullenly by in the presence. She found no ways during our stay in Waupaca [Wisconsin].”

9 Henry Wallace was replaced by Harry Truman as Roosevelt’s running mate at the Democratic convention in Chicago.

10 T. S. Eliot, The Rock .

11 St. Anthony Village, Oakmont, an orphanage under the direction of Father Louis Farina where famous retreats were given, especially those led by Father John Hugo.

12 Lollipop.

13 Jack Howe.

14 Jim’s short story published in New Mexico Quarterly Review (Spring 1944).

15 Jim’s brother, who was running wild at the time.

16 St. Joseph’s Hospital, St. Paul, Minnesota.

17 Postmortem room.

18 Walter J. Domrese, warden’s assistant at Sandstone Federal Penitentiary.

19 A conceit of E. B. White’s in “Dusk in Fierce Pajamas,” The New Yorker , January 27, 1934.

20 Jim had written some edifying pieces for The Catholic Worker .

21 Harold Weinstein, fellow inmate at Sandstone.

22 Postmortems.

23 See Introduction.

24 Michael Baius (1513–1589), Belgian theologian.

25 Pasquier Quesnel (1634–1719), French Jansenist theologian.

26 St. Paul Saints, American Association baseball team. Farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers at this time.

27 Harry Truman.

28 Henry Volkening.

2. With you it will be like being ten years old again

1 Joke.

2 Thomas à Kempis (ca. 1380–1471), author of The Imitation of Christ . He was revered by Detachers: a contemplative in contrast to the highly active Hyneses.

3 This would have been based on Jim’s stint in prison, his pacifism, and, above all, his not having what the Wahls considered a job.

4 Church of the Sacred Heart, Robbinsdale, where Garrelts was assistant.

5 First published in Cross Section, 1947 .

6 Jim’s mother converted to Catholicism ten years after her marriage.

3. Should a giraffe have to dig dandelions?

1 Bertha “Birdie” Seberger Strobel.

2 John Haskins.

3 By Robert Gibbings (1945).

4 George Barnett (joke).

5 Garrelts and Jim were going to write a play together.

6 Published in Accent (Winter 1946).

7 Egan.

8 Sister Eugene Marie Earley (1901–1993), surgical nurse; involved with the Catholic Worker movement; worked at St. Joseph’s Hospital; good friend of Father Egan’s.

4. It would seem you have the well-known business sense

1 St. Cloud department store that included a bookshop.

2 Alcuin Deutsch, abbot of St. John’s Abbey from 1921 to 1950.

3 A possible future dwelling for Jim and Betty — to be purchased with the assistance of others.

4 Dick Keefe.

5. I am like Daniel Boone cutting my way through that bourgeois wilderness

1 Father Burner is the main character in “Prince of Darkness.” The story was condemned by many members of the Catholic clergy.

2 They were going to begin their married life living in Betty’s parents’ summer cottage on a lake.

6. Something seems to be missing, and you say it’s me