Usually, it’s the story setting that draws me to pick up a book. Time and place. A Glasgow slum in the 1980s; the brutal 1700s with Māori tipuna; frozen Norway circa 1880; a present day high country farm. Then, to commit to reading I want characters I could care about, who do things I care about. So I was a slightly reluctant recipient when my friend thrust Tommorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow into my hands. It’s a book set in the States about the gaming industry, and a couple of kids and their friends who spend all their time developing and playing computer games. I’m not particularly interested in geeky American culture and think gaming is an addictive waste of life. So my knee-jerk interest was near zero. But friend Tess saw Zevin live at the AWF and raved, and a recommendation from a good reader is worth gold. So here we go.
The story follows Sadie and Sam, who meet in hospital as kids (Sadie visiting her sick sister and Sam with a long term, crippling foot injury after a tragic car accident). They bond over gaming and hang out over the years, with a few gaps. We’re told they are both super bright, top-of-the-class Harvard/MIT type kids but I never really get a sense of their smarts as all their energy goes into creating games. A couple of the trial games are explained and sound interesting in concept, but I got no feel of what it would be like to play these things. Are they time-fillers for bored people – sort of entertainment junk-food, or do they enhance your life? Don’t know. The point of gaming is never discussed, nothing about the social responsibility. Perhaps millennials don’t need the explanation. Duh.
Sam is interestingly peculiar – a disconsolate character who grows in strength through the story but never manages to express what he really wants (Sadie). He has childhood stuff to overcome. Then there is Sadie, who carries (consensually, sort of) handcuff-bruised wrists from her ex-lecturer lover, has an intense platonic relationship with Sam for years – and I feel this is kind of story bait: will they, won’t they? Then there’s a third friend who is a great foil to the pair, Marx, who is described as a NPC (non-playing character for us non-gamers) because he is the facilitator who organises these creatives into a profitable business and whom Sam says is dull. Bit harsh. I liked Marx, who is intelligent in a more relatable way that a couple of kids with their heads in a fantasy screen world. Sam and Sadie, the ingrates, don’t give him much credit for making them so successful.
Sometimes the characters tell the story, sometimes an outside narrator in the form of a journalist from the future randomly drops in: “It was 1996 and the word “appropriation” never occurred to either of them”. So we know they’re going to be successful, even if their games have the odd hiccoughs. We also go back in time to Sam’s mother’s story and meet his grandparents. (An aside: Sam has Korean parents, Marx Japanese, Sadie Jewish, though to me the kids all feel cut from the same, American, cloth). But the main thread of the story is pretty slow for such a long book. Other than Sadie and Sam getting together and the games’ successes (which happen early on), there’s really no other hook that kept me engaged. I did wonder if the plot would cleverly mirror game play, though if it did, it was too subtle for me. There are secret highways across Los Angeles that might be portals? There’s a hint of “what if” about the character’s choices, though no more than any other story. Never the feeling that if something doesn’t work you can die, go back and replay. The title ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ suggests this idea of resetting, ground-hog style, but isn’t picked up in the story.
Near the end we finally step into a game and it is far duller than real life, with cookie cutter figures in some strange world without proper rules. If this is a boy’s way to a girl’s heart, gamers really are a troubled lot.
So, not for me, but I have included this in my selection of good books for book clubs because, although the subject matter didn’t touch my periphery, Tess and I had a robust and lengthy discussion about the story. I do like the way Zevin writes, there are some lovely poetical touches and the characters were believable enough to provoke an argument.
The book has been phenomenally successful and Gabrielle Zevin is young and talented. I very much hope I will grow into her future books.
Cristina Sanders' blog 