Excerpt from Who Is Rich? by Matthew Klam, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Ran out of money. That fucker!

Angel Solito traveled from Guatemala to California, mostly on foot, mostly alone, eleven years old, walked a continent to find his parents, and finally did but never found the American dream. His story was rendered in clear bold lines, with faces delicately hatched, with big heads and a ferocious expressiveness. Reviews of his work had been universally frothy. In the days after I read it I had strange moments, traveling to some breathy place, almost happy, imagining that it was my book, my story, that I'd walked three thousand miles to find my parents, four and a half feet tall, eighty pounds, and alone.

He stood by the picnic table as more bodies surrounded him. He had caramel skin and shiny black hair. I felt the thrill of being him, like they were digging me, thanking me. I'd dreamed of the big time, and here it was, so beautiful, so real! Then I remembered that I didn't get robbed by soldiers and chased by wolves. I didn't crawl across the Sonoran Desert. Where I came from, eleven-year-olds could barely make their own beds.

I grew up in a middle-class suburb with good public schools an hour north of the G.W. Bridge, under a stand of white pine trees in an old house with wavy wooden floors and a loose banister. Walking thousands of miles to find my family would've been un- necessary. My brother lived across the hall. My father sold life insurance and other tax-dodging instruments from a skyscraper in New York City. My mom taught music to fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, in an attempt to make up for her own artistic failures. We lacked for nothing in that house except talent.

Back in the studio, a dozen people sat bowed, bent over their desks—doing what? Trying to pump life into a poorly realized, made-up world. Brandon didn't know where to put his word balloons, and Rebecca needed a beveled edge, and Sang-Keun couldn't figure out how to draw a cowboy hat.

"It's round but curved," I said, leaning over his shoulder. "Like a Pringle potato chip. A disk intersecting an ovoid."

What did he see as my hand flew across the page? Several cowboy hats, spilling out of a pencil. Did he notice how each one was unique and expressive, reflecting the life of its owner? Did he note the skill or understand how hard I worked to make some- thing difficult look effortless?

He touched the collar of his T-shirt, staring at the drawing as I moved to the next desk. He didn't know anything. He didn't care. I showed Sarah how to turn on the light box, and walked to the sinks and looked out the window, and tried my best to stay out of the way as a new generation of artists pounded at the gates of American graphic literature.

Excerpted from Who Is Rich? by Matthew Klam. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.