Shortcomings [Paperback]

Adrian Tomine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2009

The 2007 New York Times Book Review Notable Book now in paperback

Lauded for its provocative and insightful portrayal of interpersonal relationships, Adrian Tomine’s politically charged Shortcomings was one of the most acclaimed books of 2007. Among many interviews and reviews in outlets around the country, Tomine was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air and also in The Believer, New York magazine, and Giant Robot. Shortcomings landed on countless “best of” lists, including those in Entertainment Weekly and The New York Times; was praised by Junot Díaz in Publishers Weekly; and was the subject of a solo review in The New York Times Book Review that drew comparison between Tomine and Philip Roth. The groundbreaking graphic novel now returns in paperback.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Significant Seven, November 2007: Adrian Tomine draws his mid-twenties slackers with an impeccable, exact line for every slumpy gesture and cultivated rumple. In Shortcomings, this ex-wunderkind tackles a book-length comic for the first time after three collections of stories, and his maturity shows not so much in the ages of his characters, who are still slackly wandering, dropping out of grad school or managing a movie theater, but in his calm and masterful handling of his story, in which vividly individual characters wander through the maze of imposed and self-generated stereotypes of Asian and American identities (the title is a wry allusion to one of the most enduring of those assumptions). Never has that old commonplace that the personal is the political seemed more paralyzing, and more true. --Tom Nissley --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. SignatureReviewed by Junot DíazTomine's lacerating falling-out-of-love story is an irresistible gem of a graphic novel. Shortcomingsis set primarily in an almost otherworldly San Francisco Bay Area; its antihero, Ben Tanaka, is not your average comic book protagonist: he's crabby, negative, self-absorbed, über-critical, slack-a-riffic and for someone who is strenuously race-blind, has a pernicious hankering for whitegirls. His girlfriend Miko (alas and tragically) is an Asian-American community activist of the moderate variety. Ben is the sort of cat who walks into a Korean wedding and says, Man, look at all these Asians, while Miko programs Asian-American independent films and both are equally skilled in the underhanded art of fighting without fighting. As you might imagine, their relationship is in full decay. In Tomine's apt hands, Tanaka's heartbreaking descent into awareness is reading as good as you'll find anywhere. What a relief to find such unprecious intelligent dynamic young people of color wrestling with real issues that they can neither escape nor hope completely to understand.Tomine's no dummy: he keeps the issues secondary to his characters' messy humanity and gains incredible thematic resonance from this subordination. Tomine's dialogue is hilarious (he makes Seth Rogan seem a little forced), his secondary characters knockouts (Ben's Korean-American only friend Alice steals every scene she's in, and the Korean wedding they attend together as pretend-partners is a study in the even blending of tragedy and farce), and his dramatic instincts second-to-none. Besides orchestrating a gripping kick-ass story with people who feel like you've had the pleasure/misfortune of rooming with, Tomine does something far more valuable: almost incidentally and without visible effort (for such is the strength of a true artist) he explodes the tottering myth that love is blind and from its million phony fragments assembles a compelling meditation on the role of race in the romantic economy, dramatizing with evil clarity how we are both utterly blind and cannily hyperaware of the immense invisible power race exerts in shaping what we call desire. And that moment at the end when the whiteboy squares up against Ben, kung-fu style: I couldn't decide whether to fold over in laughter or to hug Ben or both. Tomine accomplishes in one panel of this graphic novel what so many writers have failed to do in entire books. In crisp spare lines, he captures in all its excruciating, disappointing absurdity a single moment and makes from it our world. (Oct.)Junot Díaz's first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, has just been published by Riverhead.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly; First Edition edition (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1897299753
• ISBN-13: 978-1897299753
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,343 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Publishers > Drawn and Quarterly

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece of Flawed Yet Sympathetic Characters, October 27, 2007

By 

M. JEFFREY MCMAHON "herculodge" (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shortcomings (Hardcover)

Written in 3 "chapters," which are more like 3 film Acts, Shortcomings tells the tale of cynical, lust-soaked Ben Tanaka, a 30-year-old movie house manager in Berkeley. Even though his girlfriend Miko is a gorgeous Japanese cultural activist with sensitivity and intelligence, Ben's wandering eye for Anglo girls and his surly attitude cause friction in his relationship with disastrous consequences. Ben finds solace in his only friend, Alice, a spunky, sharp lesbian who attends Mills College. In this context, Shortcomings explores with sadness and hilarity sexual and racial stereotypes and the painful search for an authentic identity. The characters are painfully realistic, beset by misguided desires, raging egos, and intense selfishness. But Tomine's brilliance as an artist is to give his characters complexity, believability, and, yes, our sympathy. I was sad after I finished the book in 90 minutes of reading because I loved the characters and wanted to spend more time with them and found myself fantasizing a long-running TV show about them or a series of more graphic novels so I could follow their lives in more depth. Such is the pang this great book left me.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Shortcomings with some shortcomings, May 20, 2010

By 

D. Sorel "book lovah" (Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Shortcomings (Paperback)

Shortcomings tells the story of a 30 year old Japanese-American man who is in a relationship with a Japanese-American woman. Though they have been together for years, their relationship is now on the rock as the two people try to understand the role of their ethnicity in their lives and relationships. The main male character finds Caucasian women to be more attractive than Japanese women, which his girlfriend believes is racist. The couple decides to separate when Ben's girlfriend goes away to NYC. After some failed relationships and one-night stands, Ben decides to follow her only to find that she is hiding her own secret (though it is an extremely anti-climatic secret). Ben discusses all of her personal issues with his Korean best friend who is a lesbian with a revolving door of girlfriends.

Though issues surrounding identity and the role of ethnicity in a person's life are certainly worthy of exploration, this graphic novel does not handle the material as well as other novels (graphic and otherwise). The characters appear insipid and shallow. Ben's best friend is portrayed as a stereotypical lesbian character with a new girlfriend each night. Ben himself is depicted as a "typical" male who tries to find himself by sleeping with and drooling over other women besides his girlfriend. His girlfriend is also a two-dimensional character who flees the relationship by literally moving away. The graphics are interesting and all in sepia which adds a melancholic mood. Still, the pictures are not that interesting and do not add much to the text.

Overall, I was disappointed by this selection and found both the text and pictures to be lacking. The theme of the story was quite interesting and in a different context would be a thrilling read.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny, and Dead-on, October 12, 2007

By 

A reader (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shortcomings (Hardcover)

I'm probably not an objective reviewer. I'm a white woman married to an Asian man, and we lived in the Bay Area for many years, so the subject matter was a bit close to the bone for me. At several points in the novel, I felt as though someone had been eavesdropping on my conversations. Tomine also does a great job of conveying subtle emotions through facial expressions. I loved it, and not just for the local references and jokes about Asian identity politics.