Cathy E. Crimmins, author who could sting, or inspire

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Cathy E. Crimmins, 54, of Old City, a social satirist and humorist, died Sept. 4 of complications from surgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

In 1983, Ms. Crimmins wrote an article about "young aspiring professionals" that led to the publication of Y.A.P.: The Official Young Aspiring Professional's Fast-Track Handbook. Though someone else called the same kind of people "yuppies," the book launched Ms. Crimmins' freelance writing career.

In 1988, Inquirer Magazine interviewer Maralyn Lois Polak, described her as "a social satirist whose books, articles, greeting cards, stand-up comedy routines, film skits, and radio commentary deftly skewer - or slyly undermine - the trendy, the trivial, the transitory."

Ms. Crimmins' more than 20 books include EntreChic: The Mega-Guide to Entrepreneurial Excellence and When My Parents Were My Age. She was living with six cats and a 6-year-old daughter in 1994 when she wrote The Curse of the Mommy and The Quotable Cat. With Tom Maeder she wrote the political parodies Primary Whites: A Novel Look at Right-Wing Politics and Newt Gingrich's Bedtime Stories for Orphans.

Two of her books were very serious and personal. In 2000, she chronicled her husband's traumatic brain injury and its effects in Where Is the Mango Princess. The title came from the mysterious question her husband, Alan Forman, who had been run over by a speedboat while vacationing in Canada in 1996, kept asking after he awoke from a coma. He was eventually able to return to the practice of law.

Ms. Crimmins last month published A Mother's Nightmare: A Heartrending Journal into Near Fatal Childhood Illness, about her daughter Kelly's three-year battle with a life-threatening liver disease. Her daughter recovered and is now a college junior.

In recent years, Ms. Crimmins had her own health problems. A series of back operations left her with limited mobility. She kept her sense of humor, longtime friend Joellen Brown said, and bravely navigated the bumpy brick and cobblestone streets of Old City on a motorized scooter. She was planning to write a book called Scooter Girl, Brown said, and wasn't sure if it would be a memoir or a novel.

Several weeks ago, Ms. Crimmins fell and broke an ankle, then developed infections after surgery to repair the break.

Ms. Crimmins grew up in Hunterdon County, N.J., and earned a bachelor's degree from Douglass College. She moved to Philadelphia in 1976 and earned a master's degree in medieval literature from the University of Pennsylvania.

"When I graduated," she told a Philadelphia Daily News reporter in 1995, "I ran smack into the reality that there were maybe five jobs for medievalists in the country and those jobs were filled. So I went off to earn a living."

Ms. Crimmins wrote catalog information for the Burpee Seed Co. and then was a writer for the Human Resources Network.

From 2003 to 2008, she lived in Los Angeles. While in California, she wrote Jokes My Father Never Taught Me with Rain Pryor, daughter of comedian Richard Pryor. The book was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in 2007.

In addition to her daughter, Ms. Crimmins is survived by her mother, Elizabeth Lancaster; a sister; and her former husbands, Forman and David Ledger.

A memorial service will be held at a future date.

Memorial donations may be made to the Brain Injury Association of America, 1608 Spring Hill Rd., Suite 110, Vienna, Va. 22182.