I dislike the titular Rich so much and the style in which the book is written that I can't recommend it. I rarely dislike books so intensely but this has unfortunately made the short list. I kept getting the feeling that the author needed an editor with a stronger hand. The author has so much he wants to share but it feels at times redundant, disjointed and generally haphazard. This does not feel so much like a reflection of the character's state of mind as poorly constructed narrative.

Who is Rich is a wonderfully layered story told by a narrator that a reader should dislike - but doesn't. Matthew Klam has written a wickedly funny, laugh-out-loud novel about a man in midlife crisis. His observations are descriptive, clever and relatable. I highly recommend Who is Rich

This novel could have been easily titled, “Same Time Next Year,” however it is so much more than just the irony of a man, a poor writer, enticed by a socialite needy-woman who wants love but not for the sake of coin and status. Full of humor an angst like the protagonist, this read offers insight into an artist’s wants and needs over pragmatic logic. Hence, it is a insightful ride into real life. Klam takes the theme that women are weak for men with money and gives it a throw-back twist that men are just as weak. A must read.

This book is so overly wordy it should be called the book of lists. The story is almost lost in filling of pages. I wanted to like it. I wanted to enjoy it. The words just get in the way.

I tried. I did. I couldn't muster the motivation to finish this book

The best thing I can say about this book is to thank Netgalley for the ARC for my Kindle.
I only read the book so I could give Netgalley an honest review, but there was nothing about the book that I liked.

Who is Rich is the story of a self absorbed man, who trifles with the happiness and welfare of his family and others. An unsavory character, the likes of which I hope to avoid.

Who is Rich? Richard Fischer is a 42-year-old married man with two young kids, living in Takoma Park, MD, and working as an editorial cartoonist at a political magazine. Six years ago, he had an autobiographical novel of his life in cartoons published that brought him some fame and brief glory, filled with 'themes of twenty-something agitation and incipient adult ennui.'

He'd once been a self-proclaimed 'wild man' who thought of himself as adventurous, amorous and brave. And then 'he'd embarked on conformity, routine, homeownership, marriage, parenthood' and found he couldn't bring himself to write about his current married life of diapers and exhaustion and quarrels, and so is now doing 'commercial whore work' as a cartoonist.

For the last five years, Rich has been invited to teach at the Matticook College Summer Arts Conference on one of Massachusetts' islands (Martha's Vineyard?). A time of freedom from family life, a time for brief casual flings. But last year he met a student named Amy, 41, married to an extremely wealthy man (think dark money), mother of three, and they'd shared one brief interlude of lust on the last day of the conference but kept in touch through emails and sexts during the year. Amy is a shining light in his dull workaday world, 'someone new to restore some wonder to the reason we exist,' who helps him stop feeling horrible and dead inside.

So when they meet again at this year's conference, Rich has high hopes. Is it love? Would they be willing to leave their respective spouses and families for a new life together? "We both believed there was a rich erotic life out there that we'd been denied."

But things go wrong right from the start: Amy falls during the annual softball game and breaks her wrist. Should she cut things short and go home to her kids? Rich spends a great deal of money he really shouldn't. And then he learns the magazine he works for may be folding. Now guilt really kicks in--what will his wife say when she finds all this out? Would Amy we willing to rescue him with a loan or would that just make him feel like a gigolo, being paid for being her lover?

My rating falls somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. I enjoyed Matthew Klam's complex writing style, his massively descriptive sentences. But Rich is a very complicated, unlikeable protagonist: he's loud, neurotic, and though he's not totally amoral, he is certainly losing his moral compass and is a man in the midst of a full-blown midlife crisis. Some people have to be on the verge of losing what they have before they can appreciate it.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read an arc of this new book.

This is just not my cup of tea. The novel was automatically added to my shelf when I clicked on a link from the publisher.

Who IS Rich you ask? Well Rich is a once renowned cartoonist who is doing workshops in order to help pay for his daughters preschool tuition for the fall. Rich is still married to his wife that he loves but cant help but to think of Amy. Amy is married to a brutish Wall Street Titan, who runs a multi-billion dollar private equity fund. Rich and Amy met at the workshops last year and had a brief affair. It's one year later and he cant stop thinking about her.

Amy ends up breaking her wrist during the annual softball game and Rich doesn't know how to appropriately console her. So he goes and cleans out his family banking account and savings account in order to o to a jewelry store and buy a bracelet. Rich accompanies Amy while she is seeking treatment for her broken wrist. He goes on a journey of seduction and destruction.

Rich is a very feasible character that some men and women are able to identify with. They may be with the one they love and can spend many years with but aren't necessarily in love with them. Rich is willing to go as far as to put his family in a huge financial bind as well as destroy what he knows of his family just to have Amy.

So many people try this year after year but it rarely works out to where the spouse is okay with it much less willing to forgive for the transgressions the other partner is willing to go through in order to get what they want.

Unfortunately for myself this book wasn't a win for me. I had a hard time getting into it and after forcing myself to read over 20% I couldn't keep reading it. It has nothing to do with the author or the book itself. I think the book would have been fabulous if I would have not been in a bit of a funk. After reading so many thriller/suspense it was hard to not want to keep the ride going.

I will definitely try to give this book another chance later on, because I do feel it has great potential!!

Who Is Rich? Rich is a committed father of two kids under the age of five. Rich is a somewhat less committed husband to an angry wife. Rich is unhappy. Rich is dejected because his marriage has become a sex-free environment. Rich has money problems. Rich was a once promising cartoonist but is now a struggling illustrator. Rich is stuck. Rich has an affair with a woman who doesn't have money problems but husband problems. Rich is spending a week away from his family at an annual summer school/conference where he meets up with Amy, the aforementioned woman. Rich likes extensive descriptions of people and his surroundings and reading his rambling introspection for 350 pages was the dullest thing I've done in a while. Couldn't wait to get to the end.
I tend to enjoy these mid-life-crisis 'male-lit' type of books because it's an interesting change from the more frequent female POVs, but this one wasn't right for me. There were some fleeting moments of wit and admittedly, bits of the writing were good. I didn't have an issue with the adultery theme. If anything that was the most interesting aspect of this book. But overall, there was too much inconsequential rambling. All those background characters? There were moments when I could relate to Rich. Married life with two under fives and financial worries can be a strain. Been there, done that. But ultimately, there wasn't enough there to make me care. When I finally got to the end, I was mainly wondering what the actual point of it all was?
I received an ARC via NetGalley. Thank you, and sorry.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group for providing me with an advance copy of Matthew Klam's novel, Who is Rich?, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT - Rich Fischer is a graphic novelist who achieved acclaim early in his career. His success was limited and now, middle-aged, he is trying to get his art career back on track. Rich teaches at a summer retreat, where he looks forward to reconnecting with Amy, a painter with whom he is having an affair. Both Amy and Rich are married with young children and both are unhappy in their relationships. They fantasize about running away from their spouses, but neither is willing to take action. Amy is married to an extremely wealthy businessman and although she is unhappy, she does not want for anything else. Rich is not wealthy, he has the trappings of a middle-class life that he is struggling to maintain paycheck-to-paycheck. He envies Amy's financial freedom and the success of his peers.  What does it mean to be rich? How does focusing on what you lack make you feel poorer?

LIKE- I liked the concept of Who is Rich?. The themes of envy are very relatable and Rich is a relatable character. I'm not sure that I personally connected to him, but I have people in my life who are similar to Rich. Specifically, I see Rich's flaws and hang-ups in a few people that I know. I liked the setting of an art retreat, with a large cast of colorful secondary characters. Klam has created a vibrant world and he has fabulous descriptions.

Although I disagree that this story was a comedy, Klam has written some witty phrases and observations that made me crack a smile. There were many times that I paused to admire his writing or even to read aloud a paragraph to feel the pacing.

I liked that Klam used illustrations in his novel. It was a great fit for his protagonist's profession and the pictures were a fun inclusion. 

The title is wonderful play on both the theme and the protagonist's name.

DISLIKE- On a whole, I didn't connect with the story. It was sluggish and a chore to read. I actually read several books in-between, rather than reading Who is Rich? straight through. If this had not been a review copy, I likely would not have finished reading it. The story does pick up pace in the last 10% of the book, when Rich has a major moral dilemma regarding a pair of earrings. I wish the stakes/drama had been more intense earlier in the story.

RECOMMEND- No. Who is Rich? was not my cup of tea. That said, I liked Klam's writing enough that I plan to check-out his previously published short story collection, Sam The Cat. I have a feeling that Klam might really shine in a shorter format.

I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I am 24 pages into this book, and I feel like I read nothing. This book is like reading syrup. It is long and drawn out and I feel like I'm getting no where. I just can't get anywhere & cant read anymore.

Creating a likable story while presenting an unlikeable protagonist is a tricky proposition. It’s a complex balancing act, finding ways to build empathy without leaning on sympathy. An honest portrayal of iffy morality doesn’t leave much room for error, but it’s a needle that Matthew Klam largely manages to thread.

Rich Fischer, the middle-aged acclaimed-cartoonist-turned-working-illustrator at the center of Klam’s novel “Who is Rich?” (Random House, $27), isn’t an easy guy to like. In fact, he’s kind of a jerk, one whose complaints about his life’s path are undermined by the questionable decisions that he consistently makes.

Rich is working as an instructor at a summer arts institute of sorts on the New England coast, picking up a paycheck while succumbing to his own midlife crises. A few years back, he was a bit of a cause celebre thanks to a largely autobiographical comic that he wrote receiving a great deal of critical acclaim and a decent amount of commercial success. That fame got him the gig at the institute, teaching cartooning to the bored and the directionless and picking up a steady paycheck.

This summer marks the first time he’ll see the woman with whom he embarked on an affair that only just concluded a few months prior. The wife of a hedge fund billionaire, she has become an object of confused desire for Rich; her return to the institute further complicates his disaffected connection to his life – the wife and kids, the steady dullness of his magazine job, the dearth of creative inspiration.

As the days pass, Rich lowly sinks into self-indulgent reverie, a naval-gazing spiral that leaves him constantly questioning the path he’s on and locking into a case of “grass is always greener” thinking that could serve to upend his entire world – and not in the exciting wholesale change way that he can occasionally convince himself is possible.

Ultimately, Rich is left with a choice that never really feels like a choice. He’s already adrift, but is he willing to also risk being alone? He has to settle on the kind of man he’s going to try to be. And in truth, no one knows who Rich really is – not even Rich.

There was a time when the high-end afflictions of the middle-aged white guy regularly served as a central component to a LOT of literary fiction. These days, however, the net being cast is a bit wider and the slings and arrows suffered by the man-as-frustrated-creative don’t have nearly the impact that they once did; if you’re going to that well, you’d best bring your A-game or else get overwhelmed by cliché and the ineffectiveness of ineffectiveness.

Matthew Klam brought his A-game for “Who is Rich?”

As a narrator, Rich is almost maddeningly internal, creating a suffocating sense of self-importance offset by an omnipresent fragility of ego. His feints at self-awareness are shallow ones, but he also emits an underlying awareness of that almost parodic shallowness. He’s an artist whose creative paralysis prevents him from making meaningful art; the closest he comes to true creativity is when he’s inventing justifications for his choices and behaviors.

For all that, “Who is Rich?” is still quite an engaging read. There’s a deliberateness to the pace that might be damaging for another writer, but Klam commits so fully to the thoroughness of Rich’s psyche that it almost couldn’t work otherwise. And it is bitingly funny at points, with a steady flow of turns of phrase possessed of a tossed-off vibe that nevertheless prove sharply memorable. Thought by thought, we’re guided through the head of a guy whose toughest emotional obstacles are self-imposed. Again, there’s empathy, but very little sympathy; the sweet spot for making this character fit properly into this narrative.

The book’s titular question is never fully answered – and that’s kind of the point. Who is Rich? We don’t know. Nor does he. And it’s that well-wielded ambiguity that ultimately makes “Who is Rich?” the book that it is.

Rich Fischer is a man struggling with life. Once a popular and celebrated graphic artist, now he spends his days drawing illustrations for a news magazine. Once very happy in his marriage, now he vacillates between his dedication to his wife and two young children and his feelings for his lover. Once a man devoted to his art, now he wallows in self-pity and mediocrity in his work. Once a man on a golden road to financial and popular success, now he struggles to pay the bills every month. 

All of Rich's feelings come spilling out during the week he spends at a summer arts conference where he teaches semi-autobiographical comics to young artists, dilettantes, and hippies. The arts conference draws a large cross section of artists from music, theater, writing, and fine art, so there is quite the collection of quirky and eclectic personalities surrounding him as he struggles with the weight of all his midlife questions and regrets, of his ennui and his entropy. 

Also at the conference is the girlfriend he met last year, a painter named Amy, who returned just to see him again. A year's worth of emails and sexting just wasn't enough, and while Rich wants to be a good and upstanding husband, Amy's strength and vulnerability draws him to her. Amy's billionaire husband is cruel to her, and Rich wants to make things right, but he can't even make things right for his own wife. 

Alternatively embarrassingly funny and heart-achingly sad, Matthew Klam's Who Is Rich? is a look at what it means to be an artist, at what it takes to be true to yourself in a relationship, at what it means to sell your gift in exchange for a steady paycheck, however small it may be. It's a weird and warped look at art, money, marriage, parenthood, love, lust, and self-respect that will stay with you long after you finish that last page. Who Is Rich? takes a deep dive at the thoughts of one man, but it leaves us wondering, who is any of us, really? 



Galleys for Who Is Rich? were provided by Random House through NetGalley.com, with many thanks.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC of this book in return for my honest review. I really wanted to like this but it fell short for me. I finished the whole book hoping for the protagonist Rich to make me like him but it really never happened. So many great authors hyped this book that I had high hopes. The writing was good but there were times where it bordered on stream of consciousness taking the reader in circles. Rich leaves his family for a week every year to teach graphic novel/comics at an arts conference in Cape Cod. Rich is very whiny. He meets Amy-who is miserable and rich, the latter being something that Rich can't let go of because he is not. He has an affair with Amy both emotionally and physically for a year but I never felt like Rich really looked at Amy as anything more than an outlet for his depression. I may have liked the book better if Rich could have connected with anyone besides himself.

There are unlikable characters and then their are UNLIKABLE characters. I immediately didn't care for the main character, and unfortunately that was not something that I was able to get past (especially the transphobic remarks in the opening pages). I think there is definitely an audience that will enjoy this, but I'm definitely not the target.

I could see this book working for some people -- unfortunately, I was not one of them. It's reasonably well-written, and there's some really good plot and character development. But I personally just couldn't relate to Rich and his life choices, and while I thought there might be a point in the book where I would start to sympathize with his situation, it never kicked in for me. There's a whole meta theme about how you present your life in your work, and if the author is grappling with this in writing this book, I feel sorry for him.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had difficulties with this book and ultimately skipped portions. Rich is an angry man and this book is a stream of consciousness exploration of his anger and his life. As though a middle-aged man with two very young children, a now low-key professional life and a marriage beset with the realities of small children is inherently fascinating and worthy of anger. Rich's life is banal in the extreme and that is the cause of his anger. Unfortunately that translates poorly to a good written work. I'm not angry about it; I'm disinterested. The author needed to engage me more in some aspect of Rich. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a review.

I really wanted to like this but it just became annoying to me and I did not finish. Klam has a good way with words but Rich's voice was less satirical than whining. That said, you may like this (even if I did not) if you enjoy a warped look at arts conferences, male insecurity, and how we handle growing older. Thanks to net galley for the ARC.