NONFICTION - Nov. 17, 1991

WHAT’s THIS CAT’S STORY? The Best of Seymour Krim, edited by Peggy Brooks (Paragon House: $21.95; 288 pp.). Seymour Krim used the phrase radical chic eight years before Tom Wolfe made it famous, and this premature evocation typifies Krim’s life as a writer; on the right track but a bit off the mark, never able to break through to the national consciousness. “What’s This Cat’s Story?” demonstrates that Krim, who died in 1989, isn’t better known for the very same reason he should be--because he was an honest writer, however self-indulgent. Krim had the talent but not the patience to earn the fame and respect he craved, which meant that he ended up writing pop-intellectual essays--on Kerouac, the modern novel, the New Yorker, etc.--that can be read today mostly because they are so personally felt. Krim’s best subject, however, was himself, and what he dwells on, daringly, is his inability to “make it” in the literary world. Krim would appreciate the irony; although his overwhelming desire for artistic success prevented him from achieving it in life, his willingness to admit to that desire will give his work a readership well past his death.