Suitable Accommodations

A wry moving collection of letters from the late J. F. Powers a comic writer of genius (Mary Gordon)Best known for his 1963 National Book Award–winning novel Morte D''Urban and as a master of the short story J. F. Powers drew praise from Evelyn Waugh Flannery O''Connor Saul Bellow and Philip Roth among others. Though Powers''s fiction dwelt chiefly on the lives of Catholic priests he long planned to write a novel of family life a feat he never accomplished. He did however write thousands of letters which selected here by his daughter Katherine A. Powers become an intimate version of that novel dynamic with plot and character. They show a dedicated artist passionate lover reluctant family man pained aesthete sports fan and appreciative friend. At times wrenching and sad at others ironic and exuberantly funny Suitable Accommodations is the story of a man at odds with the world and despite his faith with his church. Beginning in prison where Powers spent more than a year as a conscientious objector the letters move on to his courtship marriage comically unsuccessful attempt to live in the woods life in the Midwest and in Ireland an unorthodox view of the Catholic Church and an increasingly bizarre search for suitable accommodations which included three full-scale emigrations to Ireland. Here too are encounters with such diverse people as Thomas Merton Eugene McCarthy Robert Lowell Theodore Roethke Sean O''Faolain Frank O''Connor Dorothy Day and Alfred Kinsey. An NPR Best Book of 2013