The Stories of J.F. Powers

by J.F. Powers, Denis Donoghue (Introduction)

Hailed by Frank O'Connor as one of "the greatest living storytellers," J. F. Powers, who died in 1999, stands with Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, and Raymond Carver among the authors who have given the short story an unmistakably American cast. In three slim collections of perfectly crafted stories, published over a period of some thirty years and brought together here in a single volume for the first time, Powers wrote about many things: baseball and jazz, race riots and lynchings, the Great Depression, and the flight to the suburbs. His greatest subject, however—and one that was uniquely his—was the life of priests in Chicago and the Midwest. Powers's thoroughly human priests, who include do-gooders, gladhanders, wheeler-dealers, petty tyrants, and even the odd saint, struggle to keep up with the Joneses in a country unabashedly devoted to consumption.

These beautifully written, deeply sympathetic, and very funny stories are an unforgettable record of the precarious balancing act that is American life.

Table of Contents
The Lord's Day
The Trouble
Lions, Harts, Leaping Does
Jamesie
He Don't Plant Cotton
The Forks
Renner
The Valiant Woman
The Eye
The Old Bird, A Love Story
Prince of Darkness
Dawn
Death of a Favorite
The Poor Thing
The Devil Was the Joke
A Losing Game
Defection of a Favorite
Zeal
Blue Island
The Presence of Grace
Look How the Fish Live
Bill
Folks
Keystone
One of Them
Moonshot
Priestly Fellowship
Farewell
Pharisees
Tinkers

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, American, 20th Century, Literary Fiction, Religion

570 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2000

About the author

James Farl Powers was an American novelist and short-story writer who often drew his inspiration from developments in the Catholic Church, and was known for his studies of Catholic priests in the Midwest. Although not a priest himself, he is known for having captured a "clerical idiom" in postwar North America.

Powers was a conscientious objector during World War II, and went to prison for it. Later he worked as a hospital orderly. His first writing experiment began as a spiritual exercise during a religious retreat. His work has long been admired for its gentle satire and its astonishing ability to recreate with a few words the insular but gradually changing world of post-WWII American Catholicism. Evelyn Waugh, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy praised his work, and Frank O'Connor spoke of him as "among the greatest living storytellers".

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Keen to read this for a while. Frank and Flannery O’Connor were mad for Powers’ work, which amounted five books over a long lifetime. His style is chaste, dry, and compassionate; his stories are mostly about priests with very earthly failings. Veterans are embarrassed by eager novices; Monsignors prefer golfing to saving souls.

Refreshingly, there is none of that Church-Triumphant smugness that sticks to other Catholic authors like tar. Powers’ few stories about Black Americans are surprisingly compassionate (he was born in 1917) and free of condescension. They put Powers’ gift for dialogue to superb use.

Some might find the book repetitive; Powers’ relentless focus on Catholic clergymen is likely wearying even for the devout, which I emphatically am not. Perhaps a book best borrowed than bought.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Catholic Church should distribute free copies of this book instead of wasting time and money on misguided press conferences and "Catholics Come Home" commercials.

The stories towards the end of the book are impossibly good.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

A weirdly individual and unplaceable American author of the 20th century. Most of his stories are strange little affairs about Catholic priests in Minnesota which sounds really uninteresting but, in fact, they are wonderful. He also writes about baseball, race riots, and the horrors of suburbia, which don't deal with Catholic clergymen. Odd and incongruous. Probably read by a stark minority of anyone anywhere.

[Steven R. McEvoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories in this volume comprise the complete collection of the short stories by J.F. Powers that were published previously in three separate volumes. As far as my research can show there are only about a handful of other stories not contained in this collection. The three previous collections were:

The Prince of Darkness and Other Stories
The Presence of Grace
Look How the Fish Live

The links lead to reviews on each volume, and summary's of each short story. The list of stories is:

The Lord's Day
The Trouble
Lions, Harts, Leaping Does
Jamesie
He Don't Plant Cotton
The Forks
Renner
The Valiant Woman
The Eye
The Old Bird, A Love Story
Prince of Darkness
Dawn
Death of a Favorite
The Poor Thing
The Devil Was the Joker
A Losing Game
Defection of a Favorite
Zeal
Blue Island
The Presence of Grace
Look How the Fish Live
Bill
Folks
Keystone
One of Them
Moonshot
Priestly Fellowship
Farewell
Pharisees
Tinkers

For the Powers fan this is an essential collection. The stories appear in order based on the original order in each of the volumes they were previously published in.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2021 Catholic Reading Plan!

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Lions, Harts, and Leaping Does" ranks up there with "The Dead" from Dubliners as one of the best short stories I've read. Aside from Marilyn Robinson, I can't think of another author (not even George Eliot!) who so deeply explores sane, challenging religious faith.

"Lions . . ." was the stand out in this collection. After sampling about 10 of these stories, it appears that J.F. Powers's best writing is about priests. But some themes become slightly tiresome; priests who'd rather drive Cadillacs and play golf than tend to their laity is clearly a bugaboo for Powers.

But to return to the astonishingly good "Lions, Harts, and Leaping Does," here's a sample passage at hand: "Clearly an abecedarian observance of the vows did not promise perfection. Stemmed in divine wisdom, they were branches meant to flower forth, but requiring of the friar the water and sunlight of sacrifice. The letter led nowhere. It was the spirit of the vows that opened the way and revealed to the soul, no matter the flux of circumstance, the means of salvation."

[Dirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good many years ago, my dad, a lapsed Catholic, reminisced about a priest he'd known when he was a young man. The priest had joined Dad and his friends on poker night, enjoyed the low-stakes gambling and free flowing alcohol, and insisted that the "boys" not call him Father, but asked to be referred to by his first name, which I have since forgotten. Sometime after Dad left his hometown to join the United States Navy, he learned that the priest had died in Chicago, where he'd been struck by a train. Dad wondered aloud, wistfully, if the priest had been sober when the accident occurred.

It was the memory of my father's reminiscence that made me linger upon and then purchase this collection of short stories, which deals primarily with the lives of priests in Chicago and the Midwest and reveals them to be not unlike other men of mid-20th century America in their fears, foibles, and pursuits of upward mobility. Powers wrote with a beautifully spare and unadorned style, great empathy, and a humor as dry and subtly biting as a well mixed martini. Although the author is not one to cast stones--at least not directly and with malice--he touches upon actions that bring to mind most of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony, and sloth, leaving aside lust except for a passing suggestion in one of the stories. On the last of those, he left untouched the third rail of sexual abuse within the Church, and in doing so, Powers' brilliant stories expose men who are all very ordinary but perhaps less so.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, wry short stories. I find it odd that the back cover suggests Powers, together with some other authors, has "given the short story an unmistakably American cast," since that would normally suggest look at me pyrotechnics, film-like set pieces and soul searching nonsense about what it means to be an American. I would put Powers next to Flaubert's Three Tales and Trollope's Barsetshire novels, the first because perfectly written, the second because affectionately amused at the world.
Particularly great: "Keystone," "The Devil Was the Joker," "Prince of Darkness," and "Lions, Harts, Leaping Does." It's always a good sign when the longest stories in a collection are the best, I think.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant writing.

[Every Book A Picture · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE STORIES OF J.F. POWERS (2000), collected in one volume by NYRB Classics, is a masterclass in writing, but also in the art of showing, not telling.

It’s no secret that J.F. Powers was a meticulous writer. It was often joked that Powers spent the morning putting in a comma and the afternoon wondering whether or not he should replace it with a semicolon. Yet, Power’s meticulousness shows up on the page in his tight, crisp writing.

Consider this passage of a parish priest running the confessional:

“Finishing first, Father Burner waited for the boy to conclude. When, breathless, he did, Father Burner anointed the air and shot a whisper, “God bless you,” kicking the window shut with the heel of his hand, ejecting the boy , an ear of corn shucked clean, into the world again. There was nobody on the other side of the confessional, so Father Burner turned on the signal light. A big spider drowsy in his web, drugged with heat and sins, he sat waiting for the next one to be hurled into his presence by guilt ruddy ripe, as with the boy, or, as with the old ladies who come early and try to stay late, by the spiritual famine of their lives or simply the desire to tell secrets in the dark.”

Powers’s subjects were mostly priests, as they clearly fascinated him, but in these short stories, we are invited into the every day visible world of rectories, housekeepers, cars, cats, and parishioners. Through subtle disclosures, nuanced personalities, and shifting moods, he crafts his characters with intricate depth.

He can also be terribly funny. Take, this passage, from the short story, “Forks.” On plans for a church garden:

“Later there would be birdhouses and a ten-foot wall of thick gray stones, acting as a moat against the eyes of the world. The whole scheme struck Father Eudex as expensive and, in this country, Presbyterian.”

Highly recommended. Enjoy!

[Ralph Britton · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are thoughtful and delicate stories which at their best reminded me of Joyce's Dubliners. Little happens in them, but character and place are gradually revealed. Many of them centre around Catholic priests in the USA in the mid 20th century; their lives are treated principally in the terms of human problems, frustration, meanness and sometimes kindness. Most have touches of humour and one or two are frankly comic. I particularly liked the two narrated by Father Galt's cat, who has to cope with two priests trying to exorcise him. There is an excellent introduction by Dennis Donoghue in the NYB edition.

[Graychin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read slowly through this volume, one short story at a time, for more than two years. I was afraid to finish it. J.F. Powers was the best American short story writer you’ve never heard of. That you’ve never heard of him is probably due to his subject matter, which was focused almost entirely on midwestern Catholic culture (especially the lives of priests) in the middle twentieth century. He was a Chekhov of the parish hall. You could say that NYRB did the Lord’s work in bringing these to print again.

If my own parish book club ever gets up and running again, I'll insist this is put on the reading list.

[Clark W · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading all these stories and just re-read my favorites. The best are about priests caught between tradition and feeling. There is no throwing out of tradition in these stories, but there is critique. And there is a way that true compassion comes through. I am not Roman Catholic, nor are these stories really contemporary any more, but the stories moves me and makes me think because of the his wide empathy, his insight into characters and motivations, and his beautiful and clear writing..

[James Corcoran · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Lions, Harts, and Leaping Does" is a gorgeous story, with luscious language and moving conclusion. There are several stories in this collection I return to time and again: to laugh, to cry, to feel connected with the complicated inner lives of other complicated people.

[David Jaspers · Rating 5 out of 5]

So great. I read some of these while in seminary and others as a young priest. He captures the humanity of priestly life so well. The story about the pastor's cat and the parochial vicar is hilarious.

[LYDIA · Rating 5 out of 5]

didn't read all but loved the stories

[K. P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short story hunters, give these a reading!

[Fran Kursztejn · Rating 4 out of 5]

fav stories:
lions, harts, leaping does
the forks
renner
prince of darkness
death of a favorite
blue island
one of them
priestly fellowship

[Philip Wetjen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent short stories from a writer I had never heard of until a friend's recent recommendation. I'm a bit at a loss for words attempting to describe the power of these stories. All I can do is pass on my friend's recommendation.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

To give a quick taste of the droll humor typical of Powers' stories, here's a passage from one of my favorites, "The Presence of Grace."

"The pastor, for his part, had put them away in the cellar of his mind to ripen like cheese. But the good ladies of the Altar and Rosary were something else again. Nuns could not have kept the church cleaner, and the good ladies, unlike the nuns, didn't labor under the illusion that they were somehow priests, only different, and so weren't always trying to vault the communion rail to the altar."

One might argue that Powers' style could be described as the literary equivalent of Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy motto: "Speak softly and carry a big crozier." Fortunately for us, though, TR's warships are replaced by Powers' devilish humor and irony.

(This is one of those cases where NYRB has made a necessary choice in resurrecting this marvelous writer!)

[DROPPING OUT · Rating 5 out of 5]

J.F. Power's total literary output are complete in two novels and this collection of his short stories. I genuinely enjoyed the novels, but was unprepared for the condensed brilliance in there pieces of shorter fiction.

I could bemoan that he produced as little (or as much) as he did, but to what end? Powers was undoubted one of the finest writers in the English language in the second half of the 20th century.

My thanks, again, to Seth for having made the recommendation to read J.F. Powers. I am truly grateful.

[Geoff Wyss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powers is a master, not much known but as good as the very best. If you like O'Connor, he's a must-read--his work doesn't feel anything like hers, but he's also a "Catholic writer" and was one of O'Connor's favorites. (Incidentally, his novel Morte D'Urban won the 1962 National Book Award and is also fantastic.) If you want to try out his best first to get a taste, I would recommend "The Forks," "The Old Bird, A Love Story," and "Dawn." But there are another dozen really good stories here.

[Bette]

I was excited to read this since I'd heard so much about Powers' wonderful writing, but almost every story was so heavily steeped in Catholicism that I found it very hard to understand or relate to the characters. Their thought processes and motivations were closed books to me.

[heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

The excerpt of a Powers story in Charles Baxter's The Art of Subtext has me all hot and bothered about reading him. I always wanted to find a less gory Flannery O'Connor.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb.

[Dionysius the Areopagite · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible accident in coming across Powers. I am cutting myself short here. Read the collection throughout winter and grab a novel for now.

[Peter Kahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories, many of them featuring priests, monsignors, and bishops, always depicted as human, and always exhibiting human limitations.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Powers was a pacifist and writer who died in 1999. This is a collection of many of his short stories. His stories covered many topics.