NON FICTION

A DAY AT THE BEACH: Recollections by Geoffrey Wolff (Alfred A. Knopf: $22; 261 pp.). In recent months, scores of reviewers for this section have grumbled about the excessive length of the books they have been assigned. Whether the problem is rooted in the snooty notion of trade publishers that shoppers buy books much as they would tomatoes (“Such a plump book for $22.95; whadda deal!”) or in the desire of academic writers to wow colleagues with their erudition, our contributors generally agree that the problem is particularly American.

Fortunately, though, in Geoffrey Wolff, America is blessed with at least one writer who has thought long and hard about what is worth publishing. He looks back in mortification at the letters he would send to his brother, full of lines like “In the ruined warrens are pocketfuls of beautiful life,” typed with such manifest urgency that they pierced the paper. “This was not correspondence . . . ; these were finger exercises, and just about as welcome to the addressee as a sixth, ninth, 15th run-through of ‘Heartaches’ by a first-year student of the tenor sax.”

What, then, constitutes publishable writing? Partly style, Wolff observes, recounting how his old editor, Henry Gabbett, would hole up under a Borsalino hat and rework even Wolff’s most mundane news articles until they were titillating enough to make Page 1. One Gabbett rewrite began, for instance: “A man carrying a briefcase to show he was in business, and pointing a revolver to show what business he was in . . . “ Style can take you only so far, though, Wolff concludes. “It is one thing to want and win a reader’s attention, quite another to have a reason to want and hold the reader’s attention. Ambition is ubiquitous, purpose rare.”

What, then, is a worthwhile purpose? Or, as Wolff asks, “Why write Kilroy was here ? Is the declaration selfish, designed to drown out rival claims? ( Kilroy was here and you weren’t .) Is it mistakenly self-important? (You’ll surely wish to know Kilroy once stood where you now stand; please note the plaque). “ Wolff does not pretend to have the ultimate answer, but he suggests that while Henry Gabbett was wrong to believe “there’s a story in anything,” it is probably true that there is a story in every person, provided the writer is able to see through that person’s “false sentiment.”

“A Day at the Beach” nevertheless does not seem as candid as Wolff’s earlier memoir, “The Duke of Deception,” for while that work recorded the intensely felt experiences of childhood, here Wolff stands at a greater distance from his emotions. (Perhaps he had to; he wrote this book shortly after experiencing a heart attack.) What he records instead are often the mundane observations of middle age: e.g., “The cardiologist was laconic, self-assured. He resembled Hal Holbrook, and gave off that same aura of prematurely gray-haired competence.” Still, Wolff is an elegant writer, describing warm relationships with his sons, for instance--such as a sailing trip with Nicholas, where the two did “not face off but faced the same sky, same moon”--that provide an upbeat counterpoint to the troubled father-son relationship chronicled in “The Duke of Deception.”