Happy New Year.
Jim
MICHAEL MILLGATE
St Cloud, Minnesota
December 30, 1960
Dear Michael,
Glad to have your card. Your handwriting isn’t easy for me, but I gather you are now married (on which I’ll have nothing to say except God help you both) and are coming out in a paperback5 and may visit these shores in a year or so. We have no plans to go abroad. We have none to remain here. […]
Now about politics, which I see is still with you, I took no part in it, as usual. I did not, and do not, like Kennedy. That doesn’t mean he’s no better than Nixon. If I permitted myself to entertain serious thoughts about politics, I’d be sorrier than I am that Adlai lost out. Gene McCarthy nominated him, as you doubtless know, in the best speech of the convention. Too bad it isn’t Gene instead of Jack, if we have to have a Catholic. I understand Pope John’s already packing. I think we can use him, too. What this country really needs is a monarch, as you people* keep telling us, and why not Farouk, whose interests are surprisingly American? All for now. My blessing upon you both.
Jim
Jim, forced to move out of his beloved office, managed to find another one, also in downtown St. Cloud.
HARVEY EGAN
January 9, 1961
Dear Fr Egan,
You will remember me, probably, as the occupant of room 7, the Vossberg Bldg, over Walgreen’s. Well, today I moved, of necessity, since they are going to demolish the building soon, and now I am on the next corner, east, in what was formerly known as the Edelbrock Bldg, but is now better known as the Shanedling Bldg (pronounced Shanley, or Schaneedling, which I frankly prefer); room 5, second floor, next door to your friendly Household Finance Corporation. The rent went up to $25, from $15 at the Vossberg Bldg, and I should be paying $45, but will move should a legitimate tenant covet my space. I have 200, or 300, square feet, I forget which; two telephones (disconnected); a place to brush my teeth (with a leaky pipe), i.e., a lavatory sans jakes, alas. With jakes and a bed, I don’t know that I’d complain. I also have a fluorescent fixture for lighting, but I am hoping I’ll be able to rig up a lamp of some kind. That’s about it from here. […] I know it’s weakness, but I loved that old place and had to take myself in hand, leaving it. It was more my sort of thing.
Anon.
Jim
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
412 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
January 11, 1961
Dear Katherine Anne,
I got your card, for which thanks, and today your letter. […]
I want to tell you how much I enjoyed your stories in the Atlantic and Harper’s; I’d like to read more about Eliza, who dissected her food and said “Hum.”6 The ending is very fine in that one. The other story, “Holiday,” is one of your finest on another level, a level you have all to yourself. No one else can go there. It is a great piece of writing, and I hope it has been recognized as such, though I doubt it. […]
Best,
Jim
One of the amazing things about “Holiday,” and one I was following with you bit by bit, going over the same ground after you, like another explorer, is the insight into Germans. I have been surrounded by people of German descent all my life, it seems — this is another German town — but I can never believe that what I feel to be true of them is enough to account for them as human beings. I had a German grandmother (on my mother’s side) who worked all her life, and saved, and finally had to spend her last years with the mind she’d never really used, her body at last failing her, and it was very sad to see. She used to compliment me on the fine head of hair I have, as if it were money in the bank. One day, when I was in my early twenties, she showed me a dollar bill and said, “He was our first president, wasn’t he?” and then said she wanted me to have it, that dollar bill. At Christmastime, she got out old scraps of cloth and wrapped them up and presented them to members of the family — always a great thing for my father, who, I think, saw himself vindicated as a non-saver at such times. Well, you know all that, but you haven’t let it go at that in this story, and what you have is so much more.
HARVEY EGAN
January 25, 1961
Dear Fr Egan,
I have been hoping for a miracle in the mail, that I’d get some money from somewhere, but rather than wait until the 11th hour, I’ve decided to apply to you for a loan of, say, $500, or less if that is too much for you, and save a little wear and tear on Betty’s nerves (and mine). I have begun a story that has possibilities, I think, if I can end up with what I have in mind. In a month I should know about that and also have enough of the novel typed up for Doubleday to deal with them. I exhausted my advance royalties at the beginning of December but should be good for more if they can get a good chunk of manuscript in their hands. I fear my reputation isn’t of the best, as a producer, and unlike Del — the J. F. Powers of boxing — I can understand why. Anyway, let me know how you are holding, and don’t hesitate to tell me if you are strapped for funds. […] I gather, from accounts of the fight, that Del did not slice up Lee like country ham. […] All for now from the Schaneedling Bldg.
Jim
Gene McCarthy vs Barry Goldwater tomorrow night on TV — that might be good.
HARVEY EGAN
February 10, 1961
Dear Fr Egan,
Just to thank you for the check. I have a lot of time to think, or at least take a lot of time to think, but I don’t come to any conclusions that strike me as good enough to act upon, with regard to the future. Our “nut” is too big here: $110 for rent at home, $25 for my new office; the schools are lousy; camaraderie is at an all-time low; but. Even if I were rich, though, I don’t think I’d know which way to turn, to get out. Meanwhile, I work on this story as if everything depended on the next few words, work in the dark, unsure that I can make it come out, that I’ll reach the last page … I see Del is going on in Rochester on a twin bill. […] Baudelaire tells us that April is the cruelest month, but what about February?
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
412 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
April 19, 1961
Dear Fr Egan,
Yours rec’d yesterday but read only once, and here I am at the office remembering you said something about the Twins and the Solons.7 I couldn’t possibly make it down there this weekend, much as I’d like to, and I am interested in the Twins. I think of the Griffith clan8 as hillbillies somehow, but Cookie9 looks good to me. We used to get a Cuban now and then down in Jacksonville when I was a boy, usually a pitcher for the other team. We had these Sunday games with Ray Zelle pitching for the Indees (us) and Clark behind the plate (when he could get out; he was a patient at the asylum). I was just a boy then, but my mind was formed, or touched, by it all. Ray looked awfully good — a tall pink-skinned lad with platinum hair — but they used to get to him in about the third inning. Ah, well, little you care about this, you with your Association ball and highfalutin ways. […] I wish I could send Katherine Anne in my place for the game. She’s nuts about baseball, and I don’t know whether I approve or not. I don’t want her to end up playing pro ball with some team in Gary, Ind … but I will be in touch with you. Do you get a new magazine called Country Beautiful?
Jim
Journal, May 16, 1961
Want to finish this book — then do NAB—then family-life one: latter appeals to me, the contrast between Bellocian life — wine, food, ideas, walks, travels — and what, in fact, happens to you in this country if you live in a place like Collegeville, have a lot of children, teach at a place like St John’s … Dangerous idea — this Bellocian one — for someone like me. People like the Hyneses, who you might think are with you, don’t get hurt. They work with a net under them; they live that way, I mean.