Elif Batuman writes:

Tomine’s Shortcomings, which explores similar issues in a more realistic mode, opens with the protagonist, Ben Tanaka, watching a movie about a Chinese American girl’s evolving relationship with her grandfather: ‘As I stood beside him in his ageing fortune cookie factory . . . I realised that he was very much like the thing he’d spent his life making: a hard, protective shell containing haiku-like wisdom.’ Ben takes no pains to hide his low opinion of both the film and the festival presenting it, which was organised by his girlfriend, Miko, to showcase San Francisco Bay Area Asian American digital filmmakers (‘Didn’t they also have to be left-handed or something?’). Miko accuses Ben of being ‘ashamed to be Asian’; ‘after a movie like that,’ he retorts, ‘I’m ashamed to be human.’ These first pages display Tomine’s strengths: exquisite draftsmanship, witty repartee and a pitch-perfect ear for the well-intentioned nonsense produced by youthful idealism.

(LRB 10 April 2008)

Faber | hardback 108 pp. |ISBN: 9780571233298