THE MISANTHROPE'S CORNER.

Miss King can be reached at P. O. Box 7113, Fredericksburg, Va. 22404.

Unlike book reviewing, book blurbing is based on that deathless feminine principle: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." This would seem to disqualify me but I've been blurbing books for a quarter of a century now. I was born to blurb thanks to a sour-tempered honor that manifested itself when I was six.

One day as I was thumbing through Collier's I came to a celebrity endorsement of a then-revered product.

"Look, Mama! Ben Hogan smokes Luckies same as you."

"Oh, that means nothing. They pay him to say that."

As she explained how the endorsement business worked I went into full glower. The truth about Santa Claus hadn't bothered me a bit but this was different.

"I don't like Ben Hogan," I muttered darkly.

"Well, plenty of people do, that's why they put him in the ad."

"If he doesn't mean it, he shouldn't say it."

The first rule of the blurb business resembles the first rule of Pentagon business: "Don't call it a war." The publishing equivalent is "Don't call it a blurb." Privately everyone does but officially it's called a "comment," or more descriptively, "A word from you . . . " as in: "A word from you will call attention to this important book."

Requests for blurbs come from the editor or the publicist of a book in production and are usually based on the author's list of good blurb prospects-i.e., friends. Think of a bride registering her silver pattern.

Fax machines and e-mail did not exist when I started blurbing so I always replied in a gracious letter beginning, "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read . . . " I was so polite, but, to extend the marriage metaphor, kissin' don't last. Discovering that blurbing could adversely affect my income I devised a form letter:

The books that make people think of me when they need a blurb tend to be the same books that make literary editors think of me when they assign reviews. Since blurbing a book obligates me to eliminate myself as a reviewer, I am put in the position of working against myself.

At this stage of the game I was reviewing regularly for the New York Times, where they give you a lie-detector test if they even suspect you are friends with an author. Otherwise, invoking the blurb- review clash was merely a tactful ruse to get out of blurbing static Southern novels in which three generations of women sit on the porch and talk for 400 pages. (To get out of reviewing them I told NYTBR that I had been asked to provide a blurb.)

Between the Southern-blurb mafia and the rampant confusion that typically prevails in publishing houses, my tact soon collapsed. I reverted to type when I was asked to blurb an oral history about Elvis Presley by a woman who had once interviewed me. The editor said they needed a "quick response" because they were behind schedule, the reason for the delay being that the manuscript was 1,400 pages, but he promised I would be "caught up in the whirlwind of nonstop excitement" the moment I started reading the "enclosed" advance copy. But the letter was in an ordinary business envelope and the post office had no packages for me.

I fired off a typical snappish reply: "I have written so much about my own very different musical tastes that my blurb on anything to do with Elvis would be laughable."

My most embarrassing experience? Finding my 1980 blurb recycled in 1995 by an author who has gotten progressively worse with each book.

My most heartbreaking experience? "Andrew Ferguson's wry worldview, understated wit, and economy of style make him the Buster Keaton of the cultural essay" was how I blurbed Fools' Names, Fools' Faces, but "understated" was misprinted as "understanding" on the dust jacket.

My craziest experience? The woman who sent me her huge manuscript with a letter saying, "Here is your chance to share in this historic publishing moment by promoting my groundbreaking book." There was no SASE so I threw it in the post-office trash can. A few weeks later I got another copy and another bumptious letter: "Out of all the prominent authors eager to comment on my book, I have chosen you." This time the trash can was overflowing with discarded junk mail so I left the tome on the table, but on my next trip a postal clerk gave it back to me, explaining that he had seen me walk off without it. He was so proud of having salvaged it that I hated to throw it away in front of him, so I took it with me to put in a public trash bin. But there wasn't any. I could have sworn there was one on the corner but now it was gone. I ended up shleping a seven-pound manuscript through downtown on a broiling hot day, looking for a can. Finding one at last, and by now in a towering fury, I stood there slamming chunk after chunk of manuscript into its maw. A week later the story was all over Fredericksburg that my latest book had been rejected and I had tried to set fire to it on Caroline Street.

My favorite blurbs? Probably this schizoid pair. A Nation of Victims: "Charles Sykes's acridly funny expose of those solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, huddled [m]asses known as the American People warmed my compassion-deprived, differently sensitized heart. This book is the best news I've had since Ayn Rand came out in favor of factory smoke."

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: "Watch out for Fannie Flagg. When I walked into the Whistle Stop Cafe, she fractured my funny bone, drained my tear ducts, and stole my heart."

A writer I would love to blurb is Christopher Hitchens. I know, I know, he attacked Mother Teresa, but I have relished his writing ever since we were regular reviewers in Newsday's daily book section. I was Tuesday, he was Wednesday: ships that pass in the night, or more likely, trash-compactor buddies like Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw in The Getaway.

I've already written the blurb: "If Christopher Hitchens is a Marxist, I want to be one too."