A good bulk of my reading catalogue for the past few years has been non-fiction writing around game development. I love books like Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Jason Schreier and Masters of Doom by David Kushner because of how they explore the turmoil and triumph of people who pour everything into their craft. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin thusly was a delicious proposition of a book for me. A fictionalised documentary on the life and times of two rockstar game devs covering 30 years of their messy personal histories? It was an easy sell before I started, but by the time I had finished the final chapter, I was amazed by the sheer breadth of what this book goes for.
TTT sees estranged childhood friends Sam and Sadie reconnecting in college to make video games together. Gaming is a central point in the story, from the artistry behind how games are made, to their importance in comforting the downtrodden. Zevin writes so competently about them that the biographical elements of the book are a huge draw on their own. So often, I read a book or watch a movie where games are spoken about like the writer has only ever experienced them third hand. Here, you can really tell the author did their homework to try and speak about the making and playing of games in a way that feels true to what they mean to people in real life.
The other recurring theme here is about the value of relationships. Whether it’s parental or platonic, we see how love is absolutely transformative in our lives, how it sustains us and gives us the ability to push past both daily defeats and great tragedies. Of particular focus is the friendship between the two leads. Even if their chemistry may not be electric in their dialogue, the love language of the creative process they share is at times hypnotic to read, and can feel more palpable than a lot of love stories put to paper. The constant push and pull of their dynamic can be frustrating at times, but I was quite touched by how Zevin opted to navigate the messiness of a guy-girl best friendship.
These were just the most immediately obvious points of discussion, but as mentioned up top, it is hard to capture how much ground is covered here. Everything ranging from disability, mixed identities, misogyny across a number of industries, grief, endemic violence in America, and so much more become topics of discussion. All of this is portrayed through non-linear storytelling and incredibly varied structures in the prose that meant that every chapter was bringing something new and interesting to the table.
While I was certainly never bored, I wasn’t always blown away by some of the writing decisions. Many people are going to bounce off of this book because the constant lack of or poor communication between Sam and Sadie can come across as downright melodramatic at times. While I was satisfied how things are left with them, I can imagine many others will be left annoyed and disappointed with how their friendship didn’t mature with the pace it should have. Some of the supporting cast also suffers in the writing in a similar fashion, lacking some interiority to the point of feeling like caricatures. The most distracting thing for me has to be plot threads that get introduced that never get proper pay-off or come to unsatisfactory conclusions.
The book implies that Sam’s inflating ego is going to have a destructive effect on his work and life, but it only ever drives a wedge between him and Sadie. The woman in question also has an abortion that gets two pages of writing before disappearing from the plot and feels like it was only there to give yet another reason for her and Sam to fight
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow does so much and I think it does a lot of it well. It is a love letter to people who make games and the people who play them. It is a fascinating exploration of what compels us to do the things we do and how the people around us drive us to action. In this great scope, so much hinges on how much you can buy into the relationship between Sam and Sadie. For some, it’ll be a slam dunk and for others, it’ll be a bit of a let down. I personally recommend you give it a try either way.
Edit: broken spoiler tag
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