Shortcomings

Tomin, Adrian. Shortcomings. London: Faber and Faber, 2007. [Published in Canada and the US by Drawn & Quarterly, 2007.]

Hey. Adult reading treat alert. And by “adult” I don’t mean that it’s too graphic or sexual for teens, but that the grad school humour probably just isn’t all that funny if you’re seventeen. It’s the first graphic novel I’ve read by Adrian Tomine, but I’ll probably look for more. His writing is great and his clean black-and-white illustrations are impressive – both in their technical ability and their able to convey a wide but subtly nuanced emotional range.

Shortcomings is the story of Ben Tanaka, a neurotic 30 year old theatre manager secretly obsessed with white girls. It seems, however, that Ben's secret isn't much of a secret to the people around him, especially not to his more politically-minded girlfriend Miko who organizes the Asian-American film festival in town. And Ben’s best friend Alice - tough, mouthy, plans to sleep with all the young women in her department by the time she finishes her PhD - seems to find it endlessly amusing. But when currents of identity collide, nothing is as simple as it seems. While Alice might be tough and tirelessly promiscuous, she also drags Ben along to a wedding as her pretend boyfriend in an attempt to placate her Korean parents. When Ben’s girlfriend leaves Berkeley for a mysterious internship in at the Asian American Independent Film Institute in New York, Ben has a chance to wallow, obsess, and let his neuroses flourish. But he also has a chance to do a little exploring of his own.

The content is interesting both in its examination of the intersections of race, sexuality, and gender politics and also in its ability to find humour in all of it. But although the issues are interesting, the human story always takes centre stage. The writing seems breathtakingly honest without ever feeling confessional, and the characters are entirely believable (I think I know a few of them). If you’ve ever done most of a women studies degree, and almost drowned in the minutia of identity politics but somehow you still care about the issues even if some of the conversations make you want to barf because you’ve had them so many times... this is a book for you. And even if this isn’t you, you might really enjoy this book because, well, it’s just kind of brilliant.

Shortcomings manages to be both bleak and funny – though I wouldn’t say it’s laugh-out-loud funny, it’s more of the ‘oh, yes, ouch! I know that’ kind of funny. And occasionally it’s snort and choke when you weren’t expecting it kind of funny. There’s no happy ending, but I don’t need that here – a little bit of brilliance will do just fine thank you.