Who Is Rich?: A Novel

An Amazon Best Book of July 2017: Matthew Klam is an immensely talented author: he’s funny, deep, easily readable, and sometimes honest to the point of being startling. He’s written a novel—about a white, middle-aged, once successful graphic novelist-turned-steadily-working-illustrator—that touches on family, love, aging, unhappiness, infidelity, life as a working artist, and money. Making his protagonist white and middle-aged was a brave choice, because Rich (the protagonist) does some complaining in this novel (and some cheating), and a lot of readers don’t like to see white, middle-aged men complain or cheat. If that’s you, you can stop reading now. But Rich is also an artist. He’s educated, he’s talented, and he’s frustrated that he still has to struggle to make ends meet. He’s made choices based on passion—passion for his art, for love—which is how it should be. But what happens when the passion begins to ebb? What are you left with then? Matthew Klam strikes me as a writer’s writer, and I think that other authors will love this work; he’s just so honest and talented. But there are other people out there who will be practically relieved to come across such rawness, honesty, and humor as well. Perhaps that’s you. --Chris Schluep, The Amazon Book Review