Since the late 1950s Seymour Krim has been writing freewheeling, hardhitting, and deeply personal essays in which he explores the vicissitudes of his own life not only as a means of deriving therapy from art but also, and more important, as a way of creating a representative self that can serve as the basis for an acute examination of contemporary American life and literature. In spirit, style, and purpose these writings are strongly influenced by the Beats, emphasizing the centrality of the self along with the values of freedom, spontaneity, and the courage to say what the so-called "square" world thought was unsayable. In addition Krim's pieces are often openly hostile to the highly formal, analytical literary criticism of the New York intellectual elite. It is, therefore, interesting to consider that for several years Krim worked hard to be a part of this elite and wrote for such...