On returning to this, the Granite City, yesterday, I found a summons from what may be one of your publishers, to meet you people in New York toward the end of April. Nothing was said beyond that, but I take it that you have a book coming out; Betty says that you are on your way to England, remembers something to that effect in one of your letters. If the former is true, there’s nothing I can do for you. But if the latter is true, keep an eye out for a place for me, my wife, and five children. […]
I am just back from Grinnell College, where Howard Nemerov and I were visitors for the writers’ conference. I must say I liked him very much. He is like you in conversation — a kindly, murderous approach. I’m sorry I can’t make it to New York in April, but you tell them how it is with me. I imagine you’ve been as happy as I have to see that Ted Roethke is finally being recognized. I am hoping they don’t make him wait too long for the Nobel Prize.
Best to youse.
Jim
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
c/o A. Wahl
North River Road
St Cloud, Minnesota
April 21, 1959
Dear Katherine Anne,
As for housing, I’m afraid our luck is no better than yours, and here we are four months later (than when I last wrote) and still where we were, with Betty’s father and mother, who have had three months in Florida in the meantime. The one house I could imagine us living in was rejected by Betty’s father, who, of course, has the money with which we were going to operate; too big, taxes too high, he said, and he’s right, but I fear that means we won’t find a place. We are not going to move into a three-bedroom rambler and fix up the basement (one of his suggestions). There is little direct communication between us and him. Betty has gone on for years without intimidating him — he is a builder of large buildings — by her different outlook on life. To me it seems odd, for my parents knew from about the time I got out of high school that I was not going to follow in their steps, i.e., make earning a living my primary concern. […]
The atmosphere is clear of trouble. That is the really remarkable thing, that the two of them can stand to have us and our five children around. I know I, in their position, couldn’t go it at all. Meanwhile, we sleep in fear of the baby’s waking in the night and get through the meals sometimes with hardly a mumblin’ word — and I am in the worst spot I’ve been in yet, which is saying something. We run ads for lake cottages; we write letters to people who have suitable ones — the majority of cottages in these parts aren’t fit for man or beast. You have to be from Chicago to believe you’re experiencing the best that nature can provide. As a resort area, it is not of the first class or even of the second. And still we can’t find a place to rent for the summer. What we’ll do in September, I don’t know. The thought frightens me, but I think we may go abroad again. I have all summer to pan the necessary gold. […]
All best.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
O’er Walgreen’s
Suite No. 7
St Cloud
April 24, 1959
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] I walked around St Paul that morning I left you, and I kept getting the feeling that the city had been bombed. St Paul Stationery now looks like one of the Horder office supply stores in Chicago. The public library has been all switched around inside so that the contents no longer match the words carved in stone over the various doors. Field, Schlick appeared about the same. But my opinion is that the same rats who are gnawing down the good old buildings here — the Highway Department leads the pack — are at work in St Paul. It didn’t seem much like home to me. I did not go up around the cathedral, fearing perhaps I’d find a cloverleaf in its place.
Now, as you know, I have considered from time to time the title Morte D’Urban for my Duesterhaus novel. Whether that will be it, I don’t know, but in any event I intend to play upon the idea of dying to this world, a phrase I seem to recall from the writings of several saints. […]
We are getting nowhere at all with our quest for a summer cottage. I keep thinking that anyone else of my eminence would know somebody who would say, “Oh, go use our house in Maine. We didn’t intend to open it at all this year.” I peer into the eyes of each passerby, but not a one stops and says anything like that to me.
[…] Jim
Journal, April 25, 1959
Yesterday call from Ken McCormick saying there was a nibble for “Defection of a Favorite” for television, which could mean as much as $2,000 to me … Now what happens — nothing, I suppose. In any case I suppose the money would be applied on my debt. But it was, for a while, before I thought of that, pleasant to think that I had passage money coming in from out of nowhere.
Journal, May 4, 1959
A hard weekend for Betty and me — absolutely nothing accomplished, and the morning the worst ever so far as the children are concerned. No mail for days. No word from Ken as to that TV sale. I must bear down — as never before.
HARVEY EGAN
Suite 7
May 4, 1959
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] I was sure when I read that Del had spent the night before the fight5 chatting with a few close friends that he’d be waterlogged again, but no. It must be as some of the scribes say, if we could just see into Del’s mind, we’d know what to expect. Anyway, more power to him!
These are ulcerous days around the ranch, with one chance after another fizzling out on us: to get out from under, that is. The only possible house (the one I mentioned to you) was sold last week, and that, we’ve decided, is it so far as St Cloud is concerned.
If I had my life to live over, I’d join the Clementine fathers.
Jim […]
Journal, May 12, 1959
Last night we looked at the Colbert house on Third Ave. South and decided to rent it for June — July — August. $100 per mo. Fabulous clutter. But we can do no better. Betty, desperate to be somewhere else, is unhappy to be moving into the place. I understand her feelings. I had the same ones when I was walking around in the place. I couldn’t see a place to sit and read except on the porch — which figures as a crying room for the children in Betty’s plan, I learned. So it goes.
HARVEY EGAN
Suite 7
Tuesday, 10:00 a.m. [May 1959]
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] We found a place for the next three months, beginning in a week or so, over in the old neighborhood, students overhead, clutter where we’ll be, but … Betty still holds out in her heart for better places than this. As for me, I have cut away every last bag of sand and will begin on the members of my family if that is necessary to stay aloft, if you follow my imagery. […]
Jim
Journal, May 18, 1959
Out of gas — creatively … I feel absolutely powerless these days to prevent financial ruin. Ideas for stories don’t come.
Journal, May 26, 1959
Now living at 424 Third Ave. S. So far it has been very tough going. Betty and I never so out of harmony. Today I am back in my office for the first time since Saturday. I have the feel of the golf course story — came to me finally during Mass on Sunday — and am girding my loins to write it. Everything depends on it. The only things holding me back from Ireland now are leaving my parents and living with Betty under unsettled conditions. Perhaps if we went by air this time, we’d be in better shape when we got there. It will be killing, I know — but what is this here? What of the furniture? And so on? Into storage, I suppose. Money, money, money — this is the answer to every question confronting me.