Gabrielle Zevin’s new novel, “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” draws its title from one of William Shakespeare’s most well-known passages — the famous soliloquy from Macbeth. And like a Shakespeare play, there is much more to it than meets the eye.
The novel centers on video gaming and the game-design industry. Its main characters, Sam Masur and Sadie Green, meet in the game room of a children’s hospital in the late ’80s and bond over Oregon Trail and Super Mario Bros. Years later, as students at Harvard and MIT, they spend the summer collaborating on a new game that garners them fame and fortune. Together with Sam’s roommate, Marx, they launch a successful gaming company and move back to Los Angeles.
And that’s the beginning. Think, the musical interlude after the initial screens of Ms. Pac Man — “Act I: They Meet” — that signals a whole new phase of twists, turns and flashing ghosts. Zevin is, above all, a fantastic character- and story-builder, and this novel hits at every mark. Sam and Sadie love one another and build an intimacy beyond romance or sex. They share memories and inside jokes. They spar fiercely over their work. Theirs is the sort of friendship we don’t read about often, but should.
I’ve adored this author ever since I read “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” many years ago. “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” is a deeper, richer, more mature novel, a story about identity, love, heartbreak, and the redemptive qualities of play. And just as I did with “Fikry,” I finished this one and hugged it to my chest. Another Zevin masterpiece, another lifelong favorite. Read it.
