 After two years of no progress Seth finds out that Kalo had run a real estate business in Strathroy that his daughter inherited on his death in 1979 . He returns to Strathroy where he interviews Kalo 's daughter and 93 @-@ year @-@ old mother . He learns that Kalo spent years as a cartoonist in New York and gave up cartooning for real estate after returning to Strathroy and marrying . Kalo 's mother had kept a collection of her son 's work , but lost it when she moved to a nursing home . In the end , Seth has only the eleven cartoons he had found , which append the book . 
