Who Is Rich?

Starred review from May 29, 2017
In his first novel, Klam (Sam the Cat) explores excess and penury, conspicuous consumption and tortured artistic production, as well as monogamy and its discontents in an acidly funny portrait of a has-been cartoonist. Some years having passed since his acclaimed graphic novel appeared, Rich works as an illustrator for a magazine (a thinly veiled New Republic), a gig that pays the bills, just barely, but doesn’t satisfy his artistic ambitions: “Illustration is to cartooning as prison sodomy is to pansexual orgy. Not the same thing at all.” As the novel opens, he is preparing to lead an illustration workshop at a Cape Cod summer arts conference, an “open-air loony bin” whose collection of teachers and megalomaniac sponsor Klam satirizes marvelously. Away from his wife and children, Rich carries on an affair with Amy, a painter and “emotionally stunted zillionaire” who is married to a banker funneling money to right-wing political causes. Two dilemmas arise: whether Rich should mine his “debasing experiences for the purposes of artistic advancement,” perhaps ruining his shaky marriage in the process, and whether he should sacrifice his self-respect and accept help from his “plutocrat” lover. Though there are stretches in which Rich’s middle-aged male angst can be stifling, the vibrant prose (accompanied by John Cuneo’s equally vibrant illustrations) enlivens the proceedings. Libidinous, impulsive, sarcastic, bitter, casually suicidal, and committed to his art—“I’d given up everything for cartooning, and for that alone I deserved to die”—Rich is a worthy addition to American literature’s distinguished line of hapless antiheroes.

May 1, 2017
A down-on-his-luck cartoonist is besieged by worries about money, art, and infidelity.Klam's debut novel following a book of short stories (Sam the Cat, 2000) is narrated by Rich, a celebrated comic-book artist and magazine illustrator who's spending a few days teaching at a tony East Coast artist's retreat. His upper-middle-class facade of cultural accomplishment is rapidly collapsing, though: his signature work is six years old, the bespoke magazine (like the retreat) pays poorly, and, most importantly, he's been cheating on his wife, Robin, with Amy, a student at the retreat. Should he ditch Robin (sexless marriage, two spirit-killing young children) and pursue a relationship with Amy, a billionaire's wife whom he loves and who could perhaps resolve his money woes? And how ethical would it be for him to mine all this for the second book he's stalled on? In short, Rich is an unsympathetic character marinating in self-pity, but Klam carries the story by framing his predicament as (mostly) comic, poking fun not just at Rich's narcissistic fumblings, but the media landscape, the wealthy's obliviousness to everyday reality, overearnest students, and the forced-fun get-togethers at the workshop. (It's at one such event, a softball game, where Amy breaks an arm, prompting a surge in Rich's romantic attentions as well as a foolish I'm-my-own-man jewelry purchase.) There are a few too many scenes of Rich's maudlin musings and philanderer's rationalizations, but when Klam sustains a satirical mode (bolstered by John Cuneo's caricatures), the novel sings, making Rich a fascinating figure despite his flaws. He might be working on an old-hat "semiautobiographical story told in arty-farty black-and-white panels of a heterosexual white guy," but he insists that "until the day people stopped wishing they could cram their spouse into a dumpster, my story was relevant, too." A tale of middle-aged ennui that gets sharper as it gets funnier.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2017
The main characters in Klam's debut novel, following his acclaimed Sam the Cat and Other Stories (2000), grapple with the importance of love and sex both in and out of marriage. The Rich of the title, a once-famous cartoonist and now a magazine illustrator, is again teaching at a summer conference for writers and artists in a Provincetown-like East Coast village. Rich is married and has two young children, and at last summer's conference, he carried on a torrid affair with Amy, an artist married to an obscenely wealthy investor. Rich and Amy spent the intervening year texting and e-mailing, while Rich vainly tries to validate his adulterous behavior. He rails against the destructive force of monogamy, yet misses his kids, even his wife. With a perceptive eye and biting humor, he skewers the participants at the conference, an open-air loony bin, including his own students and fellow faculty members. Rich may be a mildly depressed neurotic in the midst of a lengthy midlife crisis, but Klam ensures that he is also a profound, often-hilarious commentator on marriage, child rearing, and artistic endeavors.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2017

Sixteen years ago, New Yorker 20 Under 40 author Klam had a big hit with his first book, Sam the Cat. Finally, he's back, bringing us the story of two people who launch an adulterous affair at an artists conference. Rich once had a modest career as a cartoonist, Amy studies narrative painting, and they so enjoyed their fling that they returned the following year to see whether sparks would fly again. They do, setting off a conflagration that burns down their lives.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.