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How Realistic Can a Catholic Writer Be? Richard Sullivan and American Catholic Literature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 June 2018
Extract
In 1933, a twenty-five-year-old writer named Richard Sullivan articulated for himself the qualities a novel should have. In a “Record of Work Begun and Ideas for Stories,” 1932-1933, he wrote:
Let all be adoration. 9-14-33
a novel must be—?
American—constantly; of course, naturally.
Scope—heights to depths; and length also: a life
Religious—naturally; how else?
Bitter—like life; intermittently.
When he wrote these words, Sullivan had not yet published a novel; the publication of his first short story in a national magazine was still three years away. He eventually published six of his novels and dozens of short stories while teaching English at the University of Notre Dame from 1936 to 1974. Few people have heard of him or his work, and, at first glance, his life looks commonplace, even prosaic—he never lived farther than one hundred miles from his birthplace and seldom traveled; he taught at the same place, largely the same courses, for thirty-eight years; he wrote and published for almost forty years, coming tantalizingly close to major success, which nonetheless always eluded him.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Religion and American Culture , Volume 6 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Religion and Twentieth-Century American Novels , Winter 1996 , pp. 35 - 61
- Copyright
- Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 1996
References
Notes
1. The initial research for this article was made possible by a Research Travel Grant from the Charles and Margaret Hall Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame, which I am very pleased to acknowledge. Warm thanks also to the archivists in the Notre Dame archives, particularly to Wendy Clauson Schlereth and Kevin Cawley. Various drafts of this article were read and commented on with generous attention by a number of colleagues and friends to whom I am most grateful: Mike Barnes, Dennis Doyle, Philip Gleason, Jim Heft, Frank Henninger, Jack McGrath, David O'Brien, and Sandra Yocum Mize.
2. Richard Sullivan, “Record of Work Begun and Ideas for Stories,” 1932-1933, Papers of Richard Sullivan (hereafter cited as CSUL) 1/2, Archives of the University of Notre Dame (UNDA).
3. Tompkins, Jane P., “But Is It Any Good?: The Institutionalization of Literary Value,” in Sensationell Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), chap. 7.Google Scholar
4. Dorothy Larrimore to Richard Sullivan, December 3,1943, CSUL 1/6, UNDA.
5. Another of Russell and Volkening's clients was Eudora Welty. Her extended correspondence with Diarmuid Russell is excerpted and published in Kreyling, Michael, Author and Agent: Eudora Welty and Diarmuid Russell (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991).Google Scholar
6. Henry Volkening to Richard Sullivan, May 2, 1941, CSUL 1/5, UNDA.
7. Richard Sullivan to Henry Volkening, May 11, 1941, CSUL 1/5, UNDA.
8. See Fisher, James T., The Catholic Counterculture in America, 1933-1962 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Moore, R. Laurence, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar
9. See “Forum—Sources of Personal Identity: Religion, Ethnicity, and the American Cultural Situation,” Religion and American Culture 2, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 1-22; Gleason's contribution is 13-18. See also his other works, especially Gleason, Philip, Keeping the Faith: American Catholicism, Fast and Present (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987).Google Scholar
10. Cuddihy, John Murray, No Offense: Civil Religion and Protestant Taste (New York: Seabury Press, 1978).Google Scholar
11. Tentler, Leslie Woodcock, “On the Margins: The State of American Catholic History,” American Quarterly 45, no. 1 (March 1993): 104-27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12. Russell and Volkening, in fact, seemed to have more than their share of Catholic writers as clients: besides Sullivan, there was Joseph Dever, Mary Lavin, J. F. Powers, and Harry Sylvester.
13. Henry Volkening to Richard Sullivan, September 12, 1951, CSUL 2/3, Henry in Volkening the original].
14. See Wuthnow, Robert, The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), 72–76.Google Scholar The most prominent contemporary critic was, of course, Blanshard, Paul, whose Communism, Democracy, and Catholic Power (Boston: Beacon Press, 1951)Google Scholar was a book-length argument for the similarity between the Vatican and the Kremlin.
15. Julia Kernan to Richard Sullivan, September 20, 1939, CSUL 1/1, UNDA.
16. Psalm 127:3 (Douay version).
17. Henry Volkening to Richard Sullivan, June 21, 1945, CSUL 1/6, UNDA [emphasis in the original].
18. Richard Sullivan to Henry Volkening, June 25, 1945, CSUL 1/6, UNDA.
19. Henry Volkening to Richard Sullivan, June 28, 1945, CSUL 1/6, UNDA [emphasis in the original].
20. Richard Sullivan to Buck Moon of Doubleday Doran and Company, June 22,1946, CSUL 1/6, UNDA.
21. MS of The World of Idella May, CSUL 4/9, UNDA, 132.
22. Harry Sylvester to Richard Sullivan, January 4, 1947, CSUL 2/1, UNDA.
23. Walter Schmidt to Richard Sullivan, March 5, 1934, CSUL 1/1, UNDA; the manuscript of “On the City” can be found in CSUL 9/14, UNDA.
24. Richard Sullivan to Harold Matson, June 16, 1938, CSUL 1/1, UNDA.
25. Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Leo XIII on the Condition of the Working Classes (Rerum Novarum) (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1942), 20; on the Bishops' 1919 program, see Hennesey, James, American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 259.Google Scholar
26. Gardiner, Harold C., S.J., “Eight More for Christmas,” America 80, no. 11 (December 18, 1948): 245 [found in CSUL 5/8, UNDA].Google Scholar
27. Review of First Citizen, by Richard Sullivan, Hartford (Connecticut) Courant, October 2, 1949 [found in CSUL 5/8, UNDA].
28. See Turner, James, Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985).Google Scholar
29. Scott, Nathan A., “The Name and Nature of Our Period-Style,” in Religion and Modern Literature: Essays in Theory and Criticism, ed. Tennyson, G. B. and Ericson, Edward E. Jr. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 121-37.Google Scholar
30. Warren, Robert Penn, “Pure and Impure Poetry” (1943), in New and Selected Essays (New York: Random House, 1989), 27–28.Google Scholar
31. Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957), 19.Google Scholar
32. Giles, Paul, American Catholic Arts and Fictions: Culture, Ideology, Aesthetics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 52.Google Scholar
33. The Catholic principle of sacramentality—the belief that all of created reality is potentially revelatory of the divine—is crucial to this under-standing of literature. See Dulles, Avery, The Catholicity of the Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Cunningham, Lawrence S., The Catholic Faith: An Introduction (New York: Paulist Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Hellwig, Monika K., Understanding Catholicism (New York: Paulist Press, 1981)Google Scholar; and McBrien, Richard P., Catholicism (Study Edition) (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1981), especially 1180-83.Google Scholar An appealing and accessible description can be found in the first hundred pages of Greeley, Andrew M. and Durkin, Mary Greeley, How to Save the Catholic Church (New York: Viking, 1984).Google Scholar
34. Purcell, Edward, The Crisis of Democratic Theory: Scientific Naturalism and the Problem of Value (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1973), 170.Google Scholar
35. Ibid., 159-78.
36. Cuddihy, , No Offense, 66.Google Scholar
37. Flannery O'Connor to A., August 2, 1955, in Collected Works (New York: Library of America, 1988), 943.
38. Whether she fairly characterized the content of modernity is less important here than understanding how deep she thought the rift really was. Schaub, Thomas Hill in American Fiction in the Cold War (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991)Google Scholar argues that O'Connor, while rejecting the “liberal narrative,” was, in the 1950's, developing a critique that looked much like that of postwar liberals.
39. Cuddihy, , No Offense, 66.Google Scholar
40. O'Connor, , Collected Works, 808-9.Google Scholar
41. Ibid., 805-6.
42. Paul Giles, in American Catholic Arts and Fictions, argues (135-38) that Catholic writers have often stood outside the romantic tradition of the “American” novel as defined by Richard Chase and others. While Sullivan's definition of “realism” is different from that of the authors (Dreiser and Farrell in particular) Giles discusses, his analysis is still useful in understanding Sullivan's distinctiveness.
43. Richard Sullivan, review of The Stranger, by Albert Camus, Chicago Tribune, April 14, 1946 [found in CSUL 12/5, UNDA].
44. Richard Sullivan, review of Bernard Clare, by James T. Farrell, Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1946 [found in CSUL 12/5, UNDA].
45. Richard Sullivan, review of All Men Are Mortal, by Simone de Beauvoir, Chicago Tribune, January 30, 1955 [found in CSUL 12/1, UNDA].
46. Richard Sullivan, review of Son of Dust, by H. F. M. Prescott, Chicago Tribune, December 9, 1956 [found in CSUL 12/1, UNDA].
47. Richard Sullivan, “The Composite View: A Lecture on Contemporary Fiction,” typescript (CSUL 11/5, UNDA), 12.
48. See Halsey, William M., The Survival of American Innocence: American Catholics in an Era of Disillusionment, 1920-1940 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Messbarger, Paul R., Fiction with a Parochial Purpose: Social Use of American Catholic Literature, 1884-1900 (Boston: Boston University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and Sparr, Arnold, To Promote, Defend, and Redeem: The Catholic Literary Revival and the Cultural Transformation of American Catholicism, 1920-1960 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990).Google Scholar
49. Sullivan, “Record of Work Completed and Ideas for Stories,rdquo; CSUL 1/6, UNDA.
50. Sullivan, Richard, “Jubilee at Baysweep,” in Great Modern Catholic Short Stories, ed. Sr. Gable, Mariella (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1942), 121-39.Google Scholar
51. Richard Sullivan to Walter Romig, January 27, 1945, CSUL 1/6, UNDA.
52. Sullivan's ambivalence about Catholic literary culture and his place in it comes through in letters he wrote to Volkening about this award. On January 4, he wrote, “Catholic Writers Guild of America—confidentially I don't know what or who this is—has chosen Fresh and Open Sky for some kind of award—not as I understand it cash, alas—as best fiction by an American Catholic in 1951, or something” (Richard Sullivan to Henry Volkening, January 4,1952, CSUL 13/25, UNDA). After the awards dinner, to which he did not go, Sullivan wrote, “I heard from a former ND priest who was there that it was extremely dull and ecclasiastical [sic]—this priest describes himself as anti-clerical—and that the main Speech of the evening was devoted to the thesis that a story ain't a story if it ain't got a plot” (Richard Sullivan to Henry Volkening, February 3,1952, CSUL 13/25, UNDA).
53. See Sparr, , To Promote, Defend, and Redeem, 22–26 Google Scholar, for a description of the origins and purposes of the Gallery.
54. Richard Sullivan to Henry Volkening, November 5, 1942, CSUL 1/5, UNDA [emphasis in the original]. It should be noted that, in his correspondence, Sullivan often did not use the Convention of underlining or italicizing the titles of magazines.
55. Richard Sullivan to Henry Volkening, January 24,1947, CSUL 1/6, UNDA.
56. Sullivan, “The Composite View,” 9-10 [emphasis in the original].
57. Harold C. Gardiner, S.J., to Richard Sullivan, February 4, 1944, CSUL 1/6, UNDA.
58. Richard Sullivan to Harold C. Gardiner, S.J., November 24,1947, CSUL 2/1, UNDA.
59. Clement J. Lambert, S.M., to Richard Sullivan, December 2,1947, CSUL 2/1, UNDA.
60. Richard Sullivan to Clement J. Lambert, S.M., December 7,1947, CSUL 2/1, UNDA.
61. Richard Sullivan to Henry Volkening, February 16, 1948, CSUL 2/1, UNDA.
62. Richard Sullivan to Henry Volkening, February 19, 1946, CSUL 1/6, UNDA.
63. Richard Sullivan to Kelsey Guilfoil, November 10,1946, CSUL 1/6, UNDA.
64. Flannery O'Connor to John Lynch, September 2, 1956, The Habit of Being: Letters, ed. Sally Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978), 172.
65. Sylvester, Harry, “Problems of the Catholic Writer,” Atlantic Monthly 181, no. 1 (January 1947): 109-13.Google Scholar
66. He owned a copy of Francis Betten's The Roman Index of Forbidden Books Briefly Explained, 3d ed. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1935), a work designed to clarify canon law on reading and publication and explain its implications for the ordinary reader.
67. Richard Sullivan, review of Criticism and Censorship, by Walter Kerr, Chicago Tribune, February 3, 1957 [found in CSUL 12/1, UNDA].
68. Richard Sullivan to John Turner, December 26,1961, CSUL 11/12, UNDA. In this context, it is interesting to consider Sullivan's refusal to have his fiction circulated to “Esquire and all its little cousins.” From time to time, when sales were few and far between, Henry Volkening would try to dissuade him from this position. His definitive reply came in a letter to Volkening of October 24, 1951: “Oh, look—on Esquire: I've been thinking, but it's no good. Like Minsky's. You know? I see your point—if that's the proper word—about the bra ads in the other magazines being pretty much the same thing. But not exactly, Henry. Esquire—I was looking at it on a newsrack the other day and I see a calendar of Twelve Cuddlesome Lovelies, One for Each Month of the Year—is in its own little class. You know me well enough to realize I do not despise femininity, but I can't help cringing and feeling a bit resentful when Esquire lays it out on a double page and throws it at me with a leer. This is no comment on Esquire fiction. I just don't want to be mixed in with that leering mentality. As an old art Student, I prefer acres of bare flesh to one leer. As a moralist, I question Esquire's basic philosophy. As a pure and simple snob—this is also it!—I abhor the vulgarity. As a writer, I'd love any money which Esquire might pay me; but what kind of an honest writer would I be if I denied the artist, moralist and snob in me? So the hell with Esquire. Okay?” (Richard Sullivan to Henry Volkening, October 24,1951, CSUL 2/3, UNDA).
69. Richard Sullivan to Fr. James A. Donnelly, C.S.C, March 30,1952, CSUL 2/4, UNDA.
70. In the title essay of The Critics Bear It Away (New York: Random House, 1992), Frederick Crews notes a similar disjunction in Flannery O'Connor's book reviewing: “There we find O'Connor, writing for regional diocesan papers, arguing for a measure of religious tolerance and relaxed censorship but also displaying a surprising meekness and credulity.…” (204, n. 44).
71. Rufus Willian Rauch, review of Summer After Summer, by Richard Sullivan, Ave Maria 56, no. 16 (1942).
72. R. J. B., review of Summer After Summer, by Sullivan, Richard, Books on Trial 1, no. 3 (1942): 20.Google Scholar
73. Philip S. Moore, C.S.C, to John Tully, n.d. (probably September/October 1942), carbon in CSUL 4/3, UNDA. Books on Trial also published something of a rebuttal by Leo L. Ward, C.S.C., head of Notre Dame's English department and Sullivan's mentor and friend. In their introduction to Ward's letter, they acknowledged that “the use of the term ‘peep-holing’ was unfortunate, since it apparently was taken to mean more than was intended” (Books on Trial 1, no. 4 (1942): 16). See also Fischer, Edward, “How Realistic Can a Catholic Writer Be?” Catholic Library World 21 (December 1949): 73–74.Google Scholar
74. Fanny Butcher, review of First Citizen, by Richard Sullivan, Chicago Tribune, October 3, 1948 [found in CSUL 5/8, UNDA].
75. Review of First Citizen, by Sullivan, Richard, Saturday Review of Literature 31, no. 49 (December 4, 1948): 58 [found in CSUL 5/8, UNDA].Google Scholar
76. Hal Borland, review of First Citizen, by Richard Sullivan, New York Times, October 10, 1948 [found in CSUL 5/8, UNDA].
77. Christopher Morley, review of First Citizen, by Richard Sullivan, Book-of-the-Month Club News, October 1948 [found in CSUL 5/8, UNDA].
78. Gardiner, “Eight More for Christmas”; Thomas E. Burke, review of First Citizen, by Richard Sullivan, Ave Maria n.s. 69, no. 22 (May 28, 1949): 698 [found in CSUL 5/8, UNDA].
79. Review of First Citizen, by Richard Sullivan, Our Lady of Letters, January 2, 1949 [found in CSUL 5/8, UNDA].
80. Walter Romig, review of First Citizen, by Richard Sullivan, Michigan Catholic, January 20,1949 [found in CSUL 5/8, UNDA].
81. Francis X. Connolly, “Book Tour: Facts and the Truth,” Catholic Mirror, January 1949 [found in CSUL 5/8, UNDA].
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid.
84. Richard Sullivan to Harry Sylvester, January 7, 1971, CSUL 3/5, UNDA.
85. Cf. Tentler, “On the Margins,” 105.