Shortcomings - by Adrian Tomine (Paperback)

About the Book

Tomines first long-form graphic novel is the story of Ben Tanaka, a confused, obsessive Japanese American male in his late 20s, and his cross-country search for contentment (or at least the perfect girl).

Book Synopsis

Now a major motion picture directed by Randall Park

Adrian Tomine's beloved New York Times Notable book was adapted into a major motion picture. With the screenplay written by the cartoonist, Shortcomings debuted at Sundance and appeared at the Tribeca Festival, both to great acclaim.

Ben Tanaka has problems. In addition to being rampantly critical, sarcastic, and insensitive, his long-term relationship is awash in turmoil. His girlfriend, Miko Hayashi, suspects that Ben has a wandering eye, and more to the point, it's wandering in the direction of white women. This accusation (and its various implications) becomes the subject of heated, spiralling debate, setting in motion a story that pits California against New York, devotion against desire, and trust against truth.

Review Quotes

"Meticulously observed...The dialogue is pitch-perfect and succinct. [Tomine is] daring in his restraint." --The New York Times Book Review

"Tomine's genius is to strip his medium of every possible type of grandiosity or indulgence, and the result is that life itself floods in. His mise-en-scène rivals Eric Rohmer's in its gentle precision, and his mastery of narrative time suggests Alice Munro. Shortcomings, as near as he'd get to a grand statement, is as deceptively simple and perfect as a comic book gets." --Jonathan Lethem

"Few books have dealt with racial and sexual politics--and, specifically, Asian American masculinity--as deftly as Shortcomings." --Time

"Compelling and laugh-out-loud hilarious." --The Washington Post

"Shortcomings is the best account ever of Asian American male angst (with some satirical takes on Asian American culture, too). Tomine is the Chekhov of comics, a master of the story form, done in pictures." --Viet Thanh Nguyen

"Exploring race, adulthood, and ambition with exquisitely tuned humor and poignancy, Shortcomings is a graphic narrative as piercingly realistic as any prose fiction." --Entertainment Weekly

"One of the most gifted graphic novelists of our time." --Wired

"Graphic novels are rarely this disquieting and subtle." --The Boston Globe

"It's a fair bet that Shortcomings will only further secure [Tomine's] title as the 'most masterful' and 'most critically-acclaimed' comics writer of his generation." --The Believer

"Graphic literature's most gifted realist...Fiercely honest." --St. Louis Post--Dispatch

About the Author

Adrian Tomine was born in 1974 in Sacramento, California. He began self-publishing his comic book series Optic Nerve when he was sixteen, and in 1994 he received an offer to publish from Drawn & Quarterly. His comics have been anthologized in publications such as McSweeney's, Best American Comics, and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Both his graphic novel Shortcomings and his memoir The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist were named New York Times Notable Books of the year. Since 1999, Tomine has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters.