Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Gabrielle Zevin

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, more affectionally titled by my best friend (and an arguably better name) T3, is a novel which documents a decades long friendship, through trials and tribulations, as they run a game studio.

As a concept I consider this quite unique. Zevin does an excellent job capturing the sheer scale and timeline of real human friendships, which blossom over decades. However, when reading about the most annoying, frustrating, anti-human characters I’ve ever seen committed to print, the experience is degraded into a painful torture. Every word puts another nail into the frontal lobe of your brain. The constant arguments between an arrogant, narcissistic cripple and a hypocritical girl-boss about issues which could have easily been resolved with communication (not even good communication, just any).

It’s interesting that a story which so prominently questions the reader about the artistic value of video games, and in the value of art itself, the author chooses to write about these questions in the worst, most generic prose possible. Zevin begins with interesting french accoutrement which adds spice and interest to the prose, however, this is quickly forgotten and we are regaled with simple verb noun combos and and uninteresting third-person limited voice. Zevin does use a non-linear time structure, however, it’s as mundane and simple as the one dimensional characters.

Through high school english classes, one of the most recited lines of teachers is “Show don’t tell”. From this novel It is safe to say Zevin’s attendance in English class was severely lacking. Vital (and not) parts of peoples backstory’s are completely shoehorned in. It seems like Zevin is trying to hit an LGBTQIA+ quota, which falls completely flat in a novel set in the early 2000’s. If the characters actions didn’t murder my suspension of disbelief in cold blood, this agenda based writing to appeal to an audience in the 21st century pissed on my cold, dead body lying in the gutter.

The biggest issue with this novel is relatability. The characters attended two of the most notable universities in the world, two of the three main protagonists come from wealthy families, and two of the characters struggle with their bi-racialty. As a white Australian reader, ZERO of these things are relatable. Not to mention Zevin asks poignant questions about the sense of belonging as a bi-racial person in the USA, however, completely fails to provide an interesting perspective on even a potential solution. Furthermore, by writing the characters as “workaholics” she isn’t exploring the idea of the pain of art, more, she’s simply reporting and reiterating the industrial work culture of the USA she has grown up in.

I read this book on the behest of my best friend. Usually, her recommendations are of quality, however, this is easily one of the most generic books I have ever read. After a lookup of Zevin, it is clear this book is an autobiography in which she deals with the issues of her own life. If this book is the result of her bildungsroman, she cannot be better mentally than when she started.