By: Jaye Curry, Fiction Reviewer
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin details the story of three friends —Sam, Sadie, and Marx — who make video games for a living while navigating the trials and tribulations of life. At the ripe age of twenty-five, Sam and Sadie make a hit game called Ichigo, and with that comes fame, money, and sacrifice. Throughout the text, the value of games is interwoven into the storyline of the characters: for Sam, it was a form of escapism while living with his disability, for Sadie it was a way she could prove herself worthy in an industry dominated by men, and Marx? Well, he’s just here for the ride.
The characters’ video game, Ichigo, follows a child who is lost at sea and must find their way back home. Sam and Sadie spend hours upon hours perfecting the graphics, while Marx does his duties as their manager by ensuring that they eat, sleep, and manage their money and resources responsibly. Furthermore, Marx functions as the communicator to potential clients. He’s personable and easy to talk to, so he lets the game developers do their thing as he does his. Ichigo is essential to the plot because it’s the thing that brings them fame and makes all their wildest dreams come true. Not only do they make a ton of money, but their game becomes a cultural phenomenon for the 20th century. What made it so special, especially for Sadie, was that it was a game she genuinely enjoyed making. She wasn’t trying to impress Dov, her teacher/boyfriend (very complicated) or anyone else. She was just making a game she believed in with her childhood best friend and it became something bigger than she ever imagined. During the course of the novel, even when the trio goes on to make bigger and better games, they continue to chase that feeling they had when they first made Ichigo. The amount of trust put into each other fostered a space for love to blossom, though it doesn’t unfold as easily as Disney fairytales would like us to believe. It’s messy and complicated and sad and human, arguably making it one of the best emotions one can experience.
Zevin’s writing style is raw, rich, and powerful and is the reason I was immersed in the story. The narrative unfolds piece by piece, especially since there are flashbacks to the past that makes it satisfying for the reader once they connect the dots. Not only does Zevin make it clear that video games are not just for escaping one’s problems, but she writes in a way where games act as a metaphor for life as well. Even if one makes a mistake in the game that is life, they will have bruises from the lessons they learned. They will have tomorrow and the next day after that to keep trying and move onward. This sort of peace that comes with this knowledge is felt by the characters as well:
“The work had been hers, yes, but it had equally been his. It had been theirs, and it wouldn’t have existed without the both of them. This was a tautology that had only taken her the better part of two decades to understand.”
Zevin, 395
While the majority of the novel was enjoyable to read, there were multiple times where Sam was utterly annoying and incapable of showing sympathy or empathy towards Sadie. One example of this is when he harbored ill feelings toward Marx for dating and falling for Sadie because he felt Sadie belonged to him. Regardless of whether it was because of the years spent together or their business partnership, it did not sit right with me that he had this invisible string tied to Sadie. I can’t deny the fact that he knows Sadie well, so well that he can look at her pupils and tell she was as smitten with Marx as Marx was with her. Even so, Sam never let Sadie fully into his heart or mind, and as a result he ultimately kept her at arm’s length. Because of this, Sadie guarded her heart from Sam and softened when she fell for the person who not only understood her but could satisfy her emotional needs as well. It is through this love triangle that Zevin tests the boundaries of friendship and how that line can become blurry when matters of the heart are involved.
Although it was a loss for Sam, Sadie ultimately got the love she deserved. I was ecstatic about this until Zevin had to remind me how unfair life is by having Marx die in a senseless act of violence. To me it felt like a slap in the face to not only the characters but to me as a reader. I was led to believe in this message that we all have tomorrow to become better only to be faced with the hard truth that it is not guaranteed at all. My heart ached for Sadie as she navigated through debilitating grief having lost her love and the father of their child who she was carrying to term. And because I’m not heartless I held sympathy for Sam as well, I just wished he was more accommodating of Sadie’s needs like not going into the office where she can see Marx’s blood splattered across the walls, but that’s neither here nor there.
Distancing myself away from the sadness, a positive for me was video games being a focal point of the narrative as I very much resonated with the joy that video games bring to people. I can remember playing Tekken every night with my sisters and hypothesizing about the lore and what would happen in future games. I’ll never forget when yawns would sprout from our mouths like flowers in bloom and we’d put the controllers away, look at each other and ask, “Same time tomorrow?”
Overall, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is the perfect novel for anyone who loves video games and the transformative power of story. Zevin created a wonderful dynamic of characters that demonstrate what it’s like being young, dumb, and determined. As an avid reader, I’ve read lots of books about both platonic and romantic relationships, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like this. It reminds me of the way Sally Rooney writes her characters in Beautiful World, Where are You. It truly is a friends-to-lovers-to-enemies-back-to-lovers pipeline. The characters in this novel take audiences by the hand and lead them through a labyrinth of journeys filled with joy, tragedy, and the twists and turns of life. With her writing that is poignant with emotion, each sentence will challenge one to think a little deeper about the way they live and why they do so.