[…] There is a monsoon blowing at our little blockhouse today too. We are situated on a prairie. Today is my day for reading MSS — tomorrow being a class day. I’ve just finished one, probably by an ex-seminarian, about a fellow who decides to leave the seminary. My comment, in effect: “Does this character have holes in his head?” Then there was one about a gambler who stole gold from a prospecting Chinaman; my comment: “Whence this materialism?” And so on. It is really, so far, an easy way to earn one’s daily bread. Not what I’ve been used to in recent years, but better than the years before, and I hope I’ll not have to do worse in years to come. Hold that sexton’s job open.
After much financial strife, the reward. I sold a story to The New Yorker. So I am going to buy Strobels’ 1942 Studebaker. I hope to get it at the end of this month — Mr S. should have his new one then — and if so, I might pick up that crackpot3 in St Joe and come see you. Like to see you among your platters.4 We are hard put for a church here. I try to plan it so I’m downtown on Sundays. Out here, well, out here … it’s not the cathedral, just as it isn’t Summit Avenue; raw country, raw people. Between the virgin land and the neon signs, nothing; no history; nothing.
I don’t see anybody at Marquette. I come and go. Very good that way, though I did hope to get in with the chancery crowd here too. They’re freezing me out, though, or else they don’t know I’m alive. Have had the usual invitations to say a few words, though, and turn them down. […]
I went to Chicago Saturday for the day and bought a sport coat at Jerrems — I felt I owed it to my students, always appearing in the same sack; they might think there isn’t money in writing. If I do get to Beardsley, I trust I’ll get to see your friend Popeye. Did you leave him some literature? What is the approach in the country, with no streetcars to leave Catholic publications on? Suppose you thrust it under the hens and the farmers get it when they come for the eggs. […] Write and pray …
Jim
I have a Chinese fellow in one class. He was a general in the last war under Chiang. About the nicest general I ever hope to meet. Only on English for two years, so there are problems, literary problems.
Jim took an increasing interest in the career of Del Flanagan (1928–2003), a middleweight prizefighter born in St. Paul. Del and his brother Glen were known as the Fighting Flanagan Brothers. In his letters to Father Egan, Jim worked up the idea that Del’s woes were akin to his own, eventually calling him “the J. F. Powers of boxing.” The racehorse Greek Song came in for the same treatment.
BETTY POWERS
Milwaukee
ca. December 8, 1949
Dear Betty,
[…] Del Flanagan of St Paul won a big fight in Detroit last night, over Sandy Saddler, the featherweight champion, but as fate would have it, Flanagan was announced from the ring as “from Minneapolis.” Such, you see, are my considerations. […]
Love
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
Milwaukee
March 29, 1950
Dear Father Egan,
[…] I trust you saw where the Irish race5 was won by Freebooter, the favorite, ridden by Jimmy Power, a Waterford boy — which is where we, and all Powerses, presumably hail from. A barkeep in Chicago won $70,000. The state gets more than half of it, though, so maybe it’s just as well.
Katherine Anne has taken to sitting in my chair here in the study. I have to sit on the edge of it. It is symbolic, I think, of the years ahead. I’ve had a good, satisfying life, however, strong on purpose, and so I am not reluctant to step down and let the younger ones take over. How is that old grey head of yours? Easter promises to be an ordeal. I have only six days off — is there something wrong with Easter in the Jesuit view? […] Write.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
Milwaukee
June 12, 1950
Dear Fr Egan,
Your letters and The Priest came today, and glad to hear from you. Thanks for The Priest, but it’s just pathetic (such ignorance no longer gives me a moment’s pause; I expect it), not as regards Harry6 and me, for we seem to be running as an entry at all the tracks, but just that a man could wade through The Cardinal and not know it was fake from the first page on.7 I tell you, Father, there is much work to be done — but I for one am not going to do it. I’m busy with my handicapping and radio programs every day, yes, and even with what I call my writing.
I had to call Chicago Saturday morning, seeing that Greek Song was going in the Belmont. Placed an across-the-board wager with my father, who in turn placed it with my brother, who in turn placed it with the Syndicate. The inevitable happened, or would seem to be the inevitable with Greek Song. He came with a rush in the stretch but was too late. […] He was fourth by a head; at 35 to one, if I’d collected the show bet, I would be ahead. The jockey rode him like a Chinaman, that’s all I can say. Really do think he got a poor ride. I thought of calling you Saturday morning to find out if you wanted in, but now I’m glad I didn’t. You evidently have little faith in me anyway, as a writer, and if you despaired of me as a handicapper, there wouldn’t be much left, would there?
Father, I am not worried about getting a book out. I would like to have one ready, yes, but I’m beyond the point where I think the world is waiting for me as for the sunrise. I gather you think short stories a preparation for novel writing. That is not true. I’m not trying to exonerate myself. The truth is I’m lazy, and after that, a family man, a teacher of creative writing, and finally I don’t care to get a book out just to get a book out; I’d rather make each one count — and in order to do that, the way I nuts around, it takes time. I know too that there’s no demand for a book such as I can write. I am outside the system, the economics of writing, in that sense. Do you know that I’ve cleared more on the one story for The New Yorker (over $1,500) than on my book, which did better than any book of stories in its year except Somerset Maugham’s? […] And now, goodbye.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
Milwaukee
Monday, July 24, 1950
Dear Fr Egan,
Your letter and The Herald Sun publicity rec’d.8 I may subscribe to The H-S for a month and renew if it’s any good. I am in the market for a good paper. I wonder if The H-S is it. The prospectus is well written. […] I see no mention of racing news in the table of contents. That’s the acid test. They’ll have that old family-life corn, Somebody Winks who has five children and a sense of humor, and they’ll have Health and Books and the rest; but what of the Sport of Kings? Did you know that in the Albany9 Diocese, during August, the paper has a racing supplement, à la the Yoot Section10 in the Visitor? Racing is a Christian sport if Ireland is Christian. The Irish are a strange race, fools and wise men at the same time (I suggest you send that to the Catholic Digest for This Struck Me). […]
I played a little golf last week with my brother-in-law11 (he’s employed at the bomb works in New Mexico) and enjoyed that. I may get some clubs again. There’s a course up the road from here. We played with a manufacturer of toilet seats who happened along and made a nice threesome. I had been shooting an Acushnet Titleist, under the impression that the big pros used them, but the kindly manufacturer, friend of Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen, said they’re all using the Dunlop Maxfli now and had been doing so since Bobby Locke came over a few years ago and burned up the fairways. I know this won’t alter your life much, but it does show you that I’m living.