The World of Gaming

American literature is such a vast territory that I have personally given up trying to establish its boundary. Just when you think you have explored its every nook and cranny, you are proven, time and again, that what you have covered so far is a minute part of this expansive territory. Over the past few years, especially after I started perusing must-read lists, I have come across a plethora of amazing works written by American writers; these are writers and books I would not come across on an ordinary day. When I say ordinary day, I mean the works of ubiquitous and prolific writers like Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steel, Nicholas Sparks, John Grisham, Jackie Collins, and Mary Higgins-Clark among others. It is their works that shaped my early reading years. It comes as no surprise that they are my most-read writers.

However, a seismic shift in my reading journey took in the past eight years. In the past few years, and through the aforementioned must-read lists, I have become familiar with names such as Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, Willa Cather, John Steinbeck, David Foster Wallace, and F. Scott Fitzgerald among others. Sure, I have come across Ernest Hemingway and Harper Lee but it was also recently that I explored their works. Every now and then, I would also encounter a new name, unfamiliar at least to me. The inner literary adventurer in me has led me down obscure passageways that the younger me would not have bothered exploring. This also applies to non-American writers.

Among the newest American writers whose body of work I recently explored was Gabrielle Zevin who is also known as a screenwriter. It was midway through 2022 that I first came across the writer and her latest novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. It was receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback from readers and critics alike. However, I was a little apprehensive about the book. I felt the book was not my cup of tea. My perception of the book changed toward the end of the year when literary publications started sharing their Best Books of 2022 list. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was repeatedly listed as one of the best reads of the year. It was more than enough to convince me to give the book a chance, something I managed to do before the year ended.

“I don’t think that every last bit of the programming has to be original. You have this purity thing, but seriously, no one will care. There is no purity in art. The process of how you arrive at something doesn’t matter at all. The game is going to be completely original because we made it. If you have access to a tool that will help, there is no reason not to use that tool.”

~ Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Zevin’s tenth novel – she published her first novel back in 2004 and also published a slew of young adult fiction – Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow charted the story of Sadie Green and Samson (Sam) Masur who first met when they were both in their early teenage years in the most unusual of circumstances and places. Sadie was in the hospital helping nurse her sister Alice who was undergoing treatment for cancer. Meanwhile, Sam was recovering from a foot injury. Sam was involved in a horrific car accident that killed his mother, Anna Lee. Traumatized, Sam has not spoken a word to anyone. Instead, he channeled his attention and energies into playing Super Mario Bros. in the children’s ward recreation room.

An important facet of the story, perhaps the most important, was gaming. Both Sadie and Sam shared an interest in gaming. A casual meeting at the recreation room led to a friendship built around their love for video games. Their shared interest also led to Sam breaking his silence. However, a bitter misunderstanding would make them drift away from each other. But in a world where our paths perpetually diverge and converge, life never runs out of tricks on its sleeves. A couple of years later, they were both university students. The year was 1996 and Sam spotted Sadie at a subway station in Boston. Sam, through a scholarship, was studying Mathematics at Harvard University. Sadie, on the other hand, was pursuing computer science at MIT. They reconnected and rebuilt what was once stalled.

As they say, some things never change. Sam and Sadie were still both passionate about video games. Sadie has a knack for designing games while Sam was gifted at creating mazes and puzzles. Sam then convinced Sadie to collaborate on designing a game. They shared a mutual respect for each other’s works and creative process. They also understood and respected how each worked. To further fulfill their vision, they enlisted the help of Sam’s wealthy and generous roommate, Marx Watanabe. This business-cum-friendship deal led to the birth of Unfair Games. The first product of their collaboration was Ichigo. It was an overnight sensation. It was a blockbuster, making all the challenges they had to go through – they even had to beg for favors – worthwhile. Barely in their mid-twenties, Sam and Sadie, and by extension, Marx, were rich and successful.

Through the individual points of view of Sam and Sadie, Zevin charted nearly three decades of the characters’ lives. The success they achieved at such a young age was the product of both passion and persistence. What made the unexpected more meaningful and more worthwhile were the challenges that each of them had to overcome. Following the untimely demise of his mother, Sam was raised by his Korean grandparents; his father, George Masur, never made his presence felt. Cash was always a problem. It was exacerbated by Sam’s foot injury which requires constant surgeries. Sam’s mixed heritage also created a chasm between him and his peers. There was a sense of alienation amidst the crowd; Marx, who was also Asian American, had the same sense of not being part of the mainstream.

“She had once read in a book about consciousness that over the years, the human brain makes an AI version of your loved ones. The brain collects data, and within your brain, you host a virtual version of that person. Upon the person’s death, your brain still believes the virtual person exists, because, in a sense, the person still does. After a while, though, the memory fades, and each year, you are left with an increasingly diminished version of the AI you had made when the person was alive.”

~ Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Being born into an affluent family, however, did not protect Sadie from the ugly realities of life. Like Sam and Marx, she had her own concerns. For one, she belonged to the minority because of her genre. She was an odd one out in a male-dominated industry; this was the 1990s. Most gamers were also male. She had to contend with latent sexism both in the workplace and beyond it. Because of this, she always had to play second fiddle to Sam. She was the better game designer but she had to fold to the pressures and demands of the industry and of her male peers. She was often overlooked by critics and gamers. As Sam received the praises and the accolades, Sadie had to watch on the stands. This was despite the fact that she poured in the most contribution to the development of Ichigo.

Indeed, many can relate to Sadie’s experience working in a male-dominated field. While progress has been made in reducing this gender parity across the globe, many women are still not recognized for their contributions. Gender politics was subtly examined in the novel. For instance, when Ichigo was being developed, Sam and Sadie agreed not to assign any gender to the eponymous character; this underlines the recent discourse on pronouns. The developers referred to the character as “they”. However, they eventually agreed to assign it a “he” after they were pressured by a game publisher who informed them that female lead characters rarely sell. It was Sam who convinced Sadie to agree to the change despite her adamant refusal. This would form the first professional and creative disagreement between good friends.

As if to redeem himself, Sam expressed his liberal view on marriage in the newly developed game Maplewood. Going against the prohibitive marital laws of the era, Sam allowed weddings across all genders. Sadie, on the other hand, not only had to deal with sexism in the real world but also in the games she was developing and creating. In-game, female non-player/playable characters (NPCs) were in various stages of undressing. Female main characters, on the other hand, were often hypersexualized and, sometimes, even objectified. This is a reality that still persists in the contemporary gaming industry. These were realities that Sadie had to turn a blind eye to.

The prevailing double standards, especially in male-dominated industries, often adversely affect women. They have no other recourse because they fight for survival. In the case of Sadie, she slowly adopted a certain level of complicity. She let herself be muted, basically erased. She let herself meld into the background and watch her achievements be minimized by the men in her life. This was the prize she had to pay for the success. This is a story very common as women are forced to concede to their male peers. Also woven into the lush tapestry of the novel were details of a toxic relationship where the male partner willfully dismissed all the stresses and concerns his partner was facing. Meanwhile, the relationship between the two main characters, however, never flourished beyond platonic even though Sam longed for Sadie.

“I think you mean a public failure. Because we all fail in private. I failed with you, for example, but no one posted an online review about it, unless you did. I fail with my wife and with my son. I fail in my work every day, but I keep turning over the problems until I’m not failing anymore. But public failures are different, it’s true.”

~ Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

One of the novel’s finer achievements resides in how Zevin captured the creative process of game design. Details of her research enriched the novel. Interestingly, when she started working on Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Zevin resorted to video games as a means to distract herself from the writing slump she was experiencing; her books were barely selling. Five years later, she would take the world by storm with her latest novel. Other concerns related to the gaming industry were also underscored in the novel, among them the palpable cultural appropriation that still permeates the industry. Ichigo, for instance, was inspired by Japanese artist Hokusai’s famous painting The Great Wave at Kanagawa. 

In all of this, the tangents existing between the real world and the universe of the gaming world manifested. Real-world concerns become gaming concerns. The gaming industry, through the astute execution of Zevin, transformed into a microcosm of our lives. Like in the real world, in-game characters are heroes who also face adversities. When we log in to their world, they become our alter egos. Through them, we project our own hopes and dreams. It comes as no surprise that video games have become a form of escape for many of us, such as in the case of Sam. We channel our energy, our anger, and even our frustrations in-game. We lose ourselves in a world far removed from our own realities.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, was, at its heart, an intimate story about friendship. It vividly captured the intricacies of the friendship between Sam and Sadie. Together, they shared failures and successes. Their friendship had rough patches but rather than weakening their bond, these rough patches strengthened their bond. Theirs is a friendship that is rare. They are both interesting and complex characters in their own right. They were flawed but they had redeeming qualities which make the readers root for them. The dichotomies in their personalities also gave the story interesting textures.

Beyond friendship, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow provided a window into the gaming industry. It provided a ponderous discourse about blurring the lines between serious art and entertainment while underlining the maladies that undermine the industry. The novel also extensively dealt with the gender bias that women face in male-dominated industries and how this adversely impacts them. With its powerful elements carefully woven together by Zevin into an elaborate and vivid tapestry, it is no wonder that many literary pundits regard Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow as one of the best works of 2022.

“A great textile, like the William Morris Strawberry Thief, is a piece of art, but it takes a lot of time to make a piece of art. It isn’t simply design either. You have to understand the fabrics and what they can bear. You have to understand the dyeing process and how to achieve certain colors and what will make the color last through the ages. If you make a mistake, you might have to begin again.”

~ Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Book Specs

Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Publishing Date: 2022
Number of Pages: 397
Genre: Literary

Synopsis

In this exhilarating novel two friends – often in love but never lovers – come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, aid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and, above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.

About the Author

Gabrielle Zevin was born on October 24, 1977, in New York City, New York, USA to parents with mixed heritages; her father, though American-born, has Ashkenazi Jewish, Russian, Lithuanian, and Polish ancestry while her mother was born in Korea before immigrating to the United States. While her parents met in Connecticut, Zevin grew up in Boca Raton, Florida. She attended  Spanish River Community High School where she graduated in 1996. She then pursued a major in English with a concentration in American Literature at Harvard University.

Before pursuing a literary career, Zevin wrote the screenplay Alma Mater in 2002. Over the course of her career, she would write three more. In 2005, she made her literary debut with the publication of Margarettown. It was a selection of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program and was longlisted for the James Tiptree Jr. Award. It was also in 2005 when Zevin published Elsewhere, her first work of young adult fiction. Her second adult novel, The Hole We’re In was published in 2010 and was succeeded by The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry (2014) and Young Jane Young (2017). Her latest novel, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was published in 2022. Zevin also wrote book reviews for the New York Times Book Review and NPR’s All Things Considered.

Zevin is married to Hans Canosa, a film director, screenwriter, film editor, and producer. The 2005 romantic drama film Conversations with Other Women was directed by Canosa while Zevin wrote the screenplay. The couple are currently residing in Los Angeles.