Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

My opinion on this book may change, I get the feeling that this book might kick around the ol' noggin for a good while yet. I passed on this book when it was released, the blurb seemed to suggest that video games would be a part of the story but that at its core it was going to be about on-again-off-again nerdy lovers and that didn't really speak to me. Not the case, romance is a big part of this book but the core of it is centered around a tenuous but platonic collaborative relationship. This is yet another book where the blurb has misled me, and I am glad that my friend insisted I read this because it was so far up my alley I've been coughing it up.

Set in 90's Cambridge, MA, and later in LA this book follows Sam and Sadie from the outset of their friendship, through college, and ultimately to the establishment of their game company. The blurb does not mention that this book has a distinctive split focus, some chapters follow Sadie and some follow Sam, but every chapter is focused on their work and extraneous relationships. It also bears noting that while he does not feature prominently at the beginning, the character of Marx (Sam's roommate at Harvard), eventually becomes the third focal point of the narrative and this book is as much about him as it is about Sam and Sadie.

This book had me nostalgia-tripping for the entire first half. I love video games, and I got started on them really young so I have fond memories of almost every game mentioned. Some of the strongest moments in this book are when the characters are simply playing a game and trading controls after a life. There may as well have been a functioning time machine in this book because I was transported every time one of these passages was offered up. Nostalgia plays a big part, and these passages are expertly crafted to evoke that feeling, but there is also the philosophical exploration of the joy of gaming. I loved the reverence with which this book treats the act of play and the intimacy of having a playmate, Zevin really captures the depth of the subject, “To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk.”

Outside of the game-focused elements, there is a lot to love. This book has a unique narrative structure. I never felt like there was ever one “main character” and as the book goes on the scope of the story expands and begins to include the perspectives and narration of the ancillary characters. This book treats all of its principal cast as equally important and uses them more as lenses by which to explore a larger narrative than it does for 1 to 1 storytelling. There is a strong focus and exploration of relationships and relationship-building, the characters grow over time and as they grow they branch out and bring minor characters into the fore. I loved this style of storytelling because it kept the focus on the games without leaving the interpersonal storylines to stagnate or progress inorganically. The lack of focus does make this book drag just a little between the 30-50% mark, but once you reach the halfway point and the focus becomes their game this book really catches its stride.

I think I would call most of the storytelling in this book organic. This story rides on its own momentum. Every development is directly related to the choices or actions of the principal cast (whichever characters happen to be “principal” in that phase of the story). Of course, this is a story that is in part about a female game designer that was published in 2022 so there are a few milestones that the story had to hit namely: issues of sexism, design credit, workplace harassment, etc. “Gamergate” isn't in the rearview, the games industry is still male-dominated and everything that concerns Sadie's story is based on reality, with most female programmers not having the luxury of being the boss. I felt that the story that was told around this framework was fantastic, unlike the hack-job focus on this issue in reality there is some serious ambiguity and nuance that's added in. Male characters that you start off hating mellow out as the story goes on, but they never truly come around and I found that to be true to life.

I only had one major complaint, and it's a matter of personal taste: This book is trying to tackle way too many social issues and by the end, I felt like I was riding the rollercoaster of evening news melodrama. I can't say anymore because of serious spoilers but there was a distinct moment where I noticed that every plot development was taking the most dramatic turn it could possibly take without breaking the story. I get that it is part of a story's job to deliver drama but I found the first 3/4th of this book to be fantastically grounded and poignant and organic only for the last act to turn into a k drama or a Spanish language soap. It seemed to me that the author was more interested in commenting on social issues than keeping the story tonally consistent. I think that if I hadn't made this observation this book would have immediately lodged itself as one of my favorites. What made it even more of an affront is that the development that I am talking about leads into what I thought was the most beautiful passage in the whole book “Pioneers”.

Overall this is a well-crafted and mature read. Sure, it's about video games at the heart of it all (it was a definitive pro for me, but your experience may vary), but it's also about much much more. I loved the cast of characters, I enjoyed the narrative structure, and I'm realizing I didn't comment on the prose but it's also quite good. There are flaws if you go looking for them, but all in all, this was a good read. Thanks to Sophia for the recommendation!

TL;DR: Two friends make a game and launch their own game studio, while they do that a lot of other shit happens.