Customer Reviews

Clumsy

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I picked up "Clumsy" after hearing Jeffrey Brown interviewed by Ira Glass on "This American Life." Brown's autobiographical debut is one of the most disarming and honest books you'll ever read. Anyone who's ever been in love (and then watched it fall apart) will identify with Brown, who tells the story of his doomed long-distance relationship with Theresa through a series of mostly one page comic-strip vignettes. Each perfect, simply drawn page captures the tiny moments that make up a relationship, the kind you look back on in retrospect. The story is not linear (though a timeline/map is included at the back of the book for the obsessives among us) and scenes jump back and forth to different points in the relationship (largely at random but sometimes with intent). Somehow, though, it all makes sense. So many of these moments hit close to home, echoing scenes from both past relationships and the one that took. My fiance (now my wife) also loved the book and elicited many exclamations of "Oh my God...we've been there."

I've currently got Brown's follow-up, "Unlikely," which details the loss of his virginity, and his limited edition latest "AEIOU: Any Easy Intimacy..." (declared "the last of the girlfriend books") on order. I'll review them soon.

This is the best graphic novel I've read in a long time. I can't say enough good things about this book. Clumsy tells the story of a first love relationship through a series of small, everyday moments. It's the kind of thing that could easily become indulgent, but Brown's writing is so precise and poetic that you can't help being moved by it.

Most love stories focus on big dramatic developements--but that's not the way most of us actually experience love. Clumsy shows the whole arc of a relationship without resorting to a conventional dramatic structure. Clumsy is also one of the few artistic accounts I've ever seen of the quiet joys of intimacy, of just being with someone you love, sharing their time.

For the unassuming way the story's told, it makes remarkably compelling reading. I've given this book to many friends. Most tell me that they couldn't put it down. And every one of them has favorite moments, vignettes that remind them of their own experiences.

The drawing style is simple but by no means simplistic, as one reviewer suggests. Brown's style strikes me as a refreshing antidote to the overdrawn post-R. Crumb groutesqueries of too many other independent comics.

Oh, and buyer beware, the reader from Collingswood NJ who hated this book, saves his 5-star reviews for comics like THE HULK and THE PUNISHER.

I read the whole book through the same day I bought it. I couldn't put it down, well only because my eyes got tired. I was almost embarassed to read it on the subway because it had explicit content everywhere, but it wasn't explicit like porno just more like how one thing leads to another and...

This is a good 'graphic' novel because you really get to know Jeffrey and Theresa as they struggle through their relationship. Brown doesn't try to make sense of their struggles or their fun times, but rather he lets the images and conversations spill out into the pages and lets the reader's imagination decide. I could begin to see the points where Jeffrey and Theresa's relationship was beginning to come apart even when Jeffrey and Theresa didn't know it themselves. One can begin to sense the pressure of time and the unraveling of their relationship which Brown shows us for all to see. When Chris Ware talks about Brown's "insatiable need to put it all down on paper," I can hardly think of a better word to describe the heart and fury with which Brown strokes the page with unpretentiousness and innocence. Jeffrey Brown draws with such rage that we can see how much Theresa meant to him from the energy of his not-so-clumsy lines.

I can't say enough good things about this book. This love story, told in graphic-novel form, contains more true moments than you find in most contemporary fiction. Everything is pared down to its essence, including the delicate hand-drawn panels.

Funny, bittersweet, clever, naughty, perfect.

Anyone who has ever been in a relationship, especially a long-distance one, should read this book.

Highly recommended.

"Clumsy" is an intimate protrait of a failed relationship that's at times amusing, touching and heart breaking. Brown's delicate artwork perfectly complements the fragile characters in this auto-biographic blueprint of his long-distance relationship with "Theresa". The novel is less a sequential story than it is a series of passing moments that serve to define who these two people are, how they worked together and how they didn't. It's an interesting, unique approach to storytelling that works wonderfully.

Yeah, well maybe he can draw. His art is consistently pretty bad...But consistent and that is core here I think. The first book of his I read (which was this one) I hated. But for some reason I read it again. Maybe it is because it can be read in its entirety over two large bowls of Crispix cereal.

I picked up the other books in the "Girlfriend Trilogy". This I blamed on my wife, as I was happy she was so involved in this and termed it as "cute".

Things have changed however and now I accept my tastes for Jeff Brown. He has something to offer. The stories are cute, sure, but more to it than that. Jeffery has tapped on something core here with the realistic dialogue (which I am convinced he must have recorded). He has tapped on real shame and embarassment. He has also revealed that sure, these things are humanizing but to the indiviudal they are also very damaging.

More so, for his place in graphic lit, Jeffery is the real deal. He doens't distract by forcing some kind of false front in art, nor in script. The themes as well are very real and I think depending on your experiences with love you will find a different way to enjoy this. Give it a chance (or two). If you want cute though go buy a gretting card, if you want a person pick up this trilogy.

the best graphic novel i've ever read, his illustrations are just as clumsy and emotionally unstable as his characters, its as if you're peering into the relationship of a couple of friends, they feel truly familiar, as well as their happiness and hurts. I read his excerpt in McSweeneys and rushed right out to find this book. now i'm going to buy his other book and he will have a place in my heart permanently. buy this, anyone who has felt broken-hearted, enraptured by new love, or just knows how it feels to be left waiting at the other end of the phone, its one of those books you hug after the last page .. i promise you!

Yes, it's ugly to look at. Yes, his lettering is atrocious. But after reading two pages you forget about that and realize just how truely amazing this freshman graphic novel by Jeffrey Brown is. You can't put it down once you open it. You don't want to finish it because of the inevitable. You'll find yourself saying outloud, "No! Why are you doing that?"
Buy it, Read it. Then buy more and give them to your friends as gifts. Just a great read.

Jeffrey Brown's drawing is so uniquely "awful" that it just really stands out when shown among the works of other "well-trained" artists. That is exactly how I first noticed his work in one of McSweeney's Quarterly Concerns. I am not sure if they are intended to be, but Brown's total disregard to human anatomy (i.e., human arms or legs cannot be bent in certain ways, not to mention their lengths vary from page-to-page; sometimes I cannot help contrasting Brown's characters to octopuses, haha) makes the whole thing enjoyable purely as really poor drawings.

I must say, however, his style of drawing is so matching with his tale of unpretentious love and attendant uncertainties and, ultimately, loneliness, to the extent that the story cannot be told in a better way --- James Kochalka's review uses the word "frailty" to describe Brown's line and story, and I cannot agree more. It is really a nice break from the kind of unrealistic relationships portrayed in movies or novels. Brown's story does make you recall things from your past, especially those parts that were clumsy.

here is a copied synopsis of this book
"CLUMSY is Jeffrey Brown's debut work; a book praised by Chris Ware and hailed by James Kochalka as his "favorite graphic novel ever." CLUMSY is the bittersweet story of a year long, long distance relationship, told through snippets of everyday life, drawn in a simple and elegantly awkward style that heightens the emotional impact and leaves you reminiscing about your own past love affairs. It also has a lot of sex."
OK so.... that said. i like this book. its relate-able to me. to love and to have lost... which ironically is what the first words in the book state. when a relationship just goes downhill and its more cause you drift apart from boredom and staleness. he nailed it all quite perfectly. the awkwardness of trying to be nice when things just aint right. and i related to this book cause of the sex... which yeah there is alot of it. its not done in a graphic manner ever though. but yeah. when two people are into each other. they have lots of sex. and its interesting to see it as it is. not just a porn book or something. this book is not just about the decline of the relation ship... its actually about the entire relationship. told thru little comic strips, usually like 6 panels long... and a ton of it is just good, cute and loving parts of the relationship. its all non linear though. it jumps around in time indiscriminately. its obvious he was heartbroken by this relationship and the fact of how he shows all the good and love they shared of it just makes you hurt for him... but at the same time he never paints her as the bad guy in the relationship. which makes it all that much more emotional. i can see how some probably wont like this. but if your a sensitive person interested in relationships in an indie comic style give this a whirl. its 10 bones on amazon. im gonna be checking out more of this dudes stuff.