Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin — book cover
American literature · New York Times bestseller · Modern fiction

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin — Summary, Key Ideas & Quotes

2022460 pages3-min Big ideas4.2 (26)
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What is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow about?

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid 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. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. 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. Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, 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.

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Illustration for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
The Power and Limits of Collaboration

At its heart, the novel is about the creative partnership between Sam and Sadie, whose shared passion for video games becomes both a source of joy and a battleground. Zevin explores how collaboration can be exhilarating, generative, and deeply intimate, but also fraught with miscommunication, ego, and unspoken wounds. The book asks: Can two people ever truly share a vision, or are all creative acts ultimately solitary? Their partnership is both a refuge and a crucible, showing how the act of making something together can bind people—and sometimes break them.

Games as Art, Escape, and Mirror

Zevin treats video games not just as entertainment but as complex art forms that reflect and shape their creators’ inner lives. The games Sam and Sadie build are extensions of their hopes, traumas, and desires. The novel argues that play is not frivolous but essential, offering both escape from pain and a way to process it. Through the characters’ evolving relationship to their creations, Zevin suggests that the worlds we build—digital or otherwise—reveal as much about us as any novel or painting.

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Open Library
4.2 / 5
26 ratings
Get smart in 3 min
6 key ideas, distilled
  1. 1The Power and Limits of Collaboration
  2. 2Games as Art, Escape, and Mirror
  3. 3Friendship Beyond Romance
  4. 4Identity, Disability, and Belonging
  5. 5The Cost of Success and Ambition

Popular quotes from Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

What is a game? It is tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It is the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption.
To play requires love and trust.

Frequently asked

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid 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. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg