Meeting an acquaintance among the hordes of people waiting on the platform at rush hour is like finding a needle in a haystack. But sometimes those chance encounters are the ones that can change the course of life. This is what happened to Sadie Green and Sam Masur, the protagonists of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (AdN / Periscopi), the new novel by Gabrielle Zevin (New York, 1977) that hits bookstores after receiving the Goodreads award and being Listed by Time as the best book of the year. If these two university students hadn’t bumped into each other on a freezing December day, they might not be considered today as two of the best game creators of their generation.
Zevin’s is not just a novel about video games. In fact, they are just an excuse to talk about many other topics, such as love, friendship, identity or improvement. “Perhaps that is the reason why the story has captivated both console lovers and those who have touched one in life. Although it is difficult to know why something becomes successful ”, the author reflects to La Vanguardia during her visit to Barcelona, ??in which she advanced that the book will make the leap to audiovisuals and that she herself is in charge of the script.
Sadie and Sam don’t have the answer to this either when their video game Ichigo becomes a bestseller that launches them to stardom before they even graduate. “Success can be just as difficult to manage as failure. The protagonists succeed almost at the beginning of the plot but then the book focuses on everything that happens to them after. How they fail and, from time to time, having a small success. But that’s what life is, getting up ”, he points out.
The plot spans over thirty years. “This helped me not only to see how the relationship between them evolved, but also to understand how the first generation that grew up playing video games grew up. I mean people who were born between the late 70s and early 80s and are now in their 40s or 50s. Has educating yourself with consoles changed you? Did it make them better in any way?”
Although there is no correct answer to the previous question, the conclusion reached by the author is that “the way we relate to others and approach complex concepts such as death change. When Sadie was very young, her sister nearly died of cancer. Playing video games was her way of defeating death and understanding it. In the case of Sam, he has suffered from a disability since he was little but he forgets about it when he starts playing because on the screen he can have the body he would like. Perfect worlds to understand the imperfect and real life. Video games offer possibilities that are not an option in real life.”
Therefore, “they are suitable for everyone, although sometimes the industry itself is not clear. Many times they are divided into video games for men and for women. Those that are supposedly intended for them have a large budget, so they tend to be more elaborate. On the other hand, the so-called video games for girls are usually designed for mobile phones, have more basic graphics and themes such as cooking or dressing. It’s a clearly sexist approach.”
This reality, he remarks, “is not exclusive to this sector. I as a novelist also live it. When I published my first novel, the critics began to say that it was about women’s literature. I found it curious because I thought he had written literature, period. When the audiobook was released the comments improved. The difference? A man read it. That made me a little desperate but I didn’t give up. I went on and here I am, publishing a book on video games. The fact that no one has made the typical macho comment about what I am doing writing about this is a reflection that something is changing. But we still have a long way to go, ”she concludes.
