Who is Rich?
Matthew Klam, 2017
Random House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812997989
Summary
Every summer, a once-sort-of-famous cartoonist named Rich Fischer leaves his wife and two kids behind to teach a class at a weeklong arts conference in a charming New England beachside town.
It’s a place where, every year, students—nature poets and driftwood sculptors, widowed seniors, teenagers away from home for the first time—show up to study with an esteemed faculty made up of prizewinning playwrights, actors, and historians; drunkards and perverts; members of the cultural elite; unknown nobodies, midlist somebodies, and legitimate stars—a place where drum circles happen on the beach at midnight, clothing optional.
Once more, Rich finds himself, in this seaside paradise, worrying about his family’s nights without him and trying not to think about his book, now out of print, or his future as an illustrator at a glossy magazine about to go under, or his back taxes, or the shameless shenanigans of his colleagues at this summer make-out festival. He can’t decide whether his own very real desire for love and human contact is going to rescue or destroy him.
A warped and exhilarating tale of love and lust, Who Is Rich? goes far beyond to address deeper questions: of family, monogamy, the intoxicating beauty of children, and the challenging interdependence of two soulful, sensitive creatures in a confusing domestic alliance. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1964
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A, Hollins College, M.A., University of New Hampshire
• Awards—Whiting Writer’s Award; O Henry Award
• Currently—lives in a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Matthew Klam was named one of the 20 best fiction writers in America under 40 by The New Yorker. He’s a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Robert Bingham/PEN Award, a Whiting Writer’s Award, and an O Henry Award.
His first book, Sam The Cat and Other Stories, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year in the category of first fiction, was selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times, Esquire Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Kansas City Star, and by the Borders for their New Voices series.
His work has been featured in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Esquire, GQ Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine. He is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and Hollins College, and has taught creative writing in many places including Johns Hopkins University (where he currently teaches), St. Albans School, American University, and Stockholm University in Sweden. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
As a literary theme, [aged men and their cheating hearts] is about as played out as a dog barking in the distance on a stormy night, but sometimes, miraculously, a writer manages to breath some new life into the subject, even if it takes some hard-core CPR to do it. Matthew Klam…turns out to be one of those writers.… Who Is Rich? is funny, maddening and, despite the well-worn subject matter, defiantly original.
Matthew Schaub - New York Times Book Review
This is an irresistible comic novel that pumps blood back into the anemic tales of middle-aged white guys. Klam may be working in a well-established tradition, but he’s sexier than Richard Russo and more fun than John Updike, whose Protestant angst was always trying to transubstantiate some man’s horniness into a spiritual crisis.… In paragraphs that flow like conversation with a witty, troubled friend, Klam captures Rich’s squirrelly consciousness, swinging from lust to despair, turning his comic eye on others and then on himself.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Klam 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..… [A] worthy addition to American literature’s distinguished line of hapless antiheroes.
Publishers Weekly
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.
Library Journal
There are a few too many scenes of Rich's maudlin musings and philanderer's rationalizations, but when Klam sustains a satirical mode…the novel sings, making Rich a fascinating figure despite his flaws.… A tale of middle-aged ennui that gets sharper as it gets funnier.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider using our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Who Is Rich? ... then take off on your own:
1. Start your discussion with Rich Fischer. Describe the state of his life—his career, marriage, finances—that make him particularly susceptible to Amy? Pay due diligence to his relationship with his wife: what are his feelings toward her and their marriage?
2. What do you think of Rich? Are you sympathetic toward him in spite of his infidelity and the draining of his family savings?
3. Rich has come to see "the lonely existence of fatherhood and monogamy as submission and defeat." Is that how you would describe modern family life? Does his perception of fatherhood echo some women's complaints about the drudgery of housework and raising young children? Do Rich's feelings of defeat give him an excuse for adultery…or perhaps make it understandable?
4. When Rich hooks up with Amy, how does her privileged lifestyle make him feel?
5. Do you enjoy the drawings by John Cuneo? Do they enhance the narrative…or are they distracting?
6. In what way is the novel a reflection on its title? How does Rich view himself? Does he have any illusions about this own value?
7. Talk about the way Rich mines his own life—his experience, wife's stories, and his friends' confidences. How else does a creative person create art (including fiction)?
8. Overall, what do you think of the book? Do you find it funny, frustrating, sad, thought-provoking? Are you satisfied with the way the novel ended?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)