Sometimes, when a book gets overexposed, I am desperate to read it – or I avoid it entirely. What can I say, we are irrational beings. So. You have to have been living under a rock to not have seen Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow everywhere since it published in summer 2022.
Sam and Sadie design video games. This is not a premise that initially appealed to me: the only game I’ve ever played with relish was the original PC version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone back in 2001.
Sam and Sadie first meet as children in hospital: Sam has survived a horrific car accident that killed his mother, Sadie’s sister is undergoing cancer treatment. Years later, now the late 90s, they reconnect while undergrads – Sadie at MIT and Sam at Harvard – bumping into each other on a crowded subway platform close to Christmas.
They are both very smart – that much is obvious – and creatively gifted. Before long, they decide to build a video game together. Sam’s roommate, Marx, who is kind to a fault and is blessed with being born into a wealthy family, assumes a producer’s role on the game.
Video game design is an art form, and their creative process is a meeting of minds. Their first game, Ichigo, is an overnight sensation, catapulting them into fame and fortune, and resulting in the birth of their company, ‘Unfair Games’. Zevin does a beautiful job at describing the creative act of game design without ever alienating the reader who has never been a gamer, avoiding jargon or otherwise obtuse frames of reference.
But success on paper masks the many challenges of the real world – not to mention the misogyny of the gaming industry. Sam has been left with a lifelong disability from his childhood accident, and gaming offers him an escape from the physical world – the physical body – that has failed him. Gaming is not just a distraction but a chance to live an alternate reality, one in which the turn-of-the-century political and social tumult – 9/11, the failure to legalize same-sex marriage – don’t exist. In the game world, you can marry whomever you want. You can start everything over again with the press of a button.
‘“What is a game?” Marx said. “It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”’
I adored these characters. Flawed and real, they are coming of age in a rapidly changing world. It’s an emotionally intelligent novel, exploring complex dynamics within relationships, especially when it comes to platonic love and creative partnerships. The characters fail to communicate, to understand, to extend grace and to extend tough love where required. It’s maddening but endearing. And Zevin is a master of her craft, so they are drawn with heart and humanity. Be prepared, too, for a devastating event that had me weeping over my morning cup of tea.
‘He knew what he was experiencing was a basic error in programming, and he wished he could open up his brain and delete the bad code. Unfortunately, the human brain is every bit as closed a system as a Mac.’
This is completely engrossing and expansive novel about the real material of lives that are often deeply unfair, but also full of beauty, connection, and love.
‘“There are no ghosts, but up here” – she gestured toward her head – “it’s a haunted house.”’
NOVELS AND TEACUPS 