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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — Gabrielle Zevin

Contains spoilers

Overview

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow follows Sam Masur and Sadie Green, two prodigies who first bond as kids in a hospital game room and later reunite in Boston to make video games. With the irrepressibly kind Marx Watanabe as their producer and third partner, they form a studio and build worlds that are at once playful and profound—projects like Ichigo, a mythic odyssey; Both Sides, a split reality about the lives we live and the ones we don’t; and Mapleworld, an online refuge governed by empathy.

Across decades, the trio navigate the volatile mix of art, commerce, and friendship: rival ambitions, unequal credit, health crises, love that doesn’t fit easy labels, and the ethics of making games for a mass audience. Their collaboration becomes a testing ground for fairness, authorship, identity, and the possibility of second chances.

Gabrielle Zevin’s novel is a story about creation—how worlds are built from constraint and care—and about the intimate risks of partnership. It treats games as a language for grief and joy, asking what we owe our collaborators, our audiences, and the selves we could have been.

Plot Summary

As a child visiting her sister at the hospital, Sadie Green wanders into the game room and meets Sam Masur, an injured boy recovering from a crushed foot. They play Nintendo together, and a sustaining friendship forms through shared systems and jokes. For over a year, Sadie frames the visits as Bat Mitzvah service, secretly logging hours despite her grandmother’s warning not to mix charity and friendship. When Sam discovers the timesheet, he ends the relationship, and both carry the wound for years.

In college, Sam, now at Harvard, unexpectedly spots Sadie at a Boston T station. Before boarding, she hands him a disk of her game, Solution, a moral puzzle that impresses Sam and his roommate Marx Watanabe. The encounter revives possibility. At MIT, Sadie dazzles and provokes in Dov Mizrah’s Advanced Games seminar with EmilyBlaster and Solution; Dov’s praise turns into an affair and mentorship. After winter break, Dov leaves to reconcile with his wife, and Sadie sinks into depression. Sam seeks her out, shows up daily with small kindnesses, and they reconcile. He proposes they make a summer game together, mythologizing their partnership’s beginning.

They conceive Ichigo after watching Marx perform in Twelfth Night: a very young, genderless child swept out to sea who must find home. Marx, whose charisma soon proves organizational gold, names the character, sets up an LLC, feeds the team, and becomes their producer. When Sadie’s custom tech can’t achieve the storm they imagine, Sam urges licensing Ulysses, the engine behind Dov’s Dead Sea. Dov grants it for a producer credit and equity. Sam and Sadie take semesters off, work through exhaustion, and finish Ichigo with a haunting ending in which the child returns home changed by time.

Sam collapses from overwork and later breaks his ankle; in a dawn moment, Sadie tells him, “I love you.” Dov weeps over the finished game and pushes a big-deal strategy. Two publishers bid: modest, creator-friendly Cellar Door and the richer, mass-market Opus. With Sam’s debts mounting and Dov advocating pragmatism, they choose Opus. Marketing turns Ichigo into a “boy” and Sam into its public face, sidelining Sadie. Ichigo II ships on a tight timeline and feels like a retreat. Sadie refuses to make a third immediately and pitches Both Sides, a game that toggles between ordinary life and a heroic counterpart.

Meanwhile Sam’s damaged foot deteriorates; an orthopedist warns amputation is inevitable. Marx, seeing both health and creative needs, moves the company to Los Angeles. Sadie leaves Dov and joins the new Venice office; on the eve of surgery, she and Sam reaffirm their bond over tokens from their past. Sadie’s trust wavers the next morning when she finds a signed Dead Sea disc and wonders if Sam nudged her toward Dov for technical gain; she pointedly avoids visiting him after his amputation.

In L.A., their lives diverge. Sadie thrives in Venice and drives development, while Sam convalesces on the Eastside, beset by phantom limb pain that he hides. For Both Sides, Sadie builds the Oneiric engine to realize Myre Landing, a foggy fantasy realm; Sam channels hospital knowledge into Mapletown, a tender, painful simulation of illness and limits. At a celebration, Zoe Cadogan’s score binds the worlds; on the roof, Zoe nudges a kiss between Sadie and Marx, a private shift that will matter.

Both Sides launches to poor sales and mixed reviews. The failure ignites an argument: Sadie accuses Sam of vanishing during promotion and of earlier choices (Ulysses, Opus) that cost her authorship; Sam insists he believed in the work and did what the company needed. In the fight’s rawest moment, Sadie reveals that her past depression followed a secret abortion, and that Ichigo’s loss is hers, too. They share a joint, a fragile truce amid bruised truths.

Unfair regains footing with Counterpart High, a breakout hit built on Sadie’s engine and produced by Marx. In Tokyo, Marx and Sadie conceive a pivot: turn Mapletown into an online world with free entry and paid customization. They call Sam from Japan; he approves. Back in Los Angeles, Mapleworld launches in October 2001 and becomes an overnight phenomenon. Sam’s avatar, Mayor Mazer—folksy, limping, and kind—sets the tone for a governed utopia. As the player base explodes, Sam steers Mapleworld into overt civic life: inclusive marriages, conservation, protests, and town halls. The platform draws devotion and threats; Marx hires security for Sam.

Sam realizes Sadie and Marx are in love and reels privately but chooses to continue the work. A year later, Sadie turns to Master of the Revels, a learned, multi-POV mystery about Marlowe and censorship. Sam wants broader games and resists. Marx sides with Sadie. Their creative rift becomes public, but Sam later plays Revels and calls it her best work, agreeing to join its promotion while insisting he’ll credit her authorship.

On the road, Sadie suffers persistent nausea and confirms she is pregnant. During a New York cover shoot, news arrives of an active shooter near their Venice office. Marx’s calls go unanswered. In the aftermath—two days after Marx’s funeral—Sam returns alone to the office. He arranges repairs, confronts bloodstains and a bullet hole, learns insurance won’t cover the damage, and clashes with Sadie over remembrance versus erasure. Cash is tight, and deadlines loom for Counterpart High 4 and a Revels expansion. Sadie, incapacitated by grief and hyperemesis, refuses to return but finishes The Scottish Expansion from home with her lead, Mori.

At a launch party Sadie skips, Sam discovers a portfolio, Our Infinite Days, with desert vampires and a mother-daughter “Keeper” mechanic—work Marx had flagged for Sadie. He meets the creators, Charlotte and Adam Worth, and pointedly asks, “How do you see it?,” stepping into Marx’s producer role. When the Worths start at Unfair, Charlotte shows Sam a hidden cameo in The Scottish Expansion: Marx performing “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” as Macbeth. The discovery hurts and steadies Sam—proof that Sadie still speaks to him through craft.

Alone, Sam boots The Oregon Trail, remembers his and Sadie’s first games, and sketches a new Old West MMO. He courts Sadie inside that game years later as Dr. Edna Daedalus, a private invitation to collaboration she doesn’t immediately accept. Time passes. Sadie teaches at MIT, using Solution to teach rigor and failure. Sam cares for Dong Hyun; after his grandfather dies, Sadie attends the memorial and learns she’s inherited the Donkey Kong cabinet from Sam’s childhood. Over calls about a mis-shelved Magic Eye book, they laugh again.

In New York, a French studio pitches Ichigo III, starring an adult Ichigo searching for his daughter. Sam and Sadie test a level, walk the city, and quietly lay out why they never became lovers: their strongest intimacy has always been making things together. At the airport, Sam admits he still wants to work with her. Boarding, Sadie turns back and hands him a small drive—Ludo Sextus—asking for notes. The gesture lands like a title screen: a return to play, and the possibility of another life together in the work.

Characters

  • Sam Masur
    Co-founder of Unfair Games and designer whose childhood bond with Sadie Green evolves into a lifelong creative partnership. Struggles with chronic pain, public authorship, and leadership as he becomes the face of Ichigo and Mapleworld while balancing loyalty to Sadie and the company.
  • Sadie Green
    Programmer and designer who creates Solution, EmilyBlaster, and the Oneiric engine, and leads Master of the Revels. Her drive for rigor and authorship collides with industry pressures, a fraught mentorship with Dov Mizrah, and complicated love for both Sam and the work.
  • Marx Watanabe
    Producer, roommate, and glue of the team who names Ichigo, organizes Unfair, and protects Sam and Sadie’s space to create. His kindness, pragmatism, and partnership with Sadie shape the studio’s culture and catalyze key pivots like Mapleworld.
  • Dov Mizrah
    Celebrated designer-professor who mentors and exploits Sadie, provides the Ulysses engine, and becomes a producer on Ichigo. His market-first advice pushes Opus and reframes authorship, igniting long-running tensions about credit and control.
  • Zoe Cadogan
    Composer and Marx’s on-and-off partner whose scores deepen Ichigo and Both Sides. She nudges team dynamics at key moments and helps steer the move to Los Angeles that enables Sam’s surgery and Sadie’s break from Dov.
  • Anders Larsson
    Sam’s adviser who distinguishes aptitude from love of math, nudging Sam toward games. Later finds Sam collapsed and shepherds him to care, a steady, humane influence around moments of crisis.
  • Anna Lee
    Sam’s mother, an actress whose move to Los Angeles and later death in a car crash haunt Sam’s life and art. Her philosophy about moments and chance shapes how Sam understands games and grief.
  • Dong Hyun Lee
    Sam’s grandfather and Koreatown anchor who models pragmatic kindness and leaves Sam with a blueprint for "pivots." His death later helps rekindle Sam and Sadie’s connection and bequeaths the Donkey Kong cabinet to Sadie.
  • Bong Cha Lee
    Sam’s grandmother, a plainspoken realist who comforts him after trauma and teaches endurance. Her counsel about the mind as a haunted house becomes a lens for how the characters live with memory.
  • Alice Green
    Sadie’s older sister whose illness first brings Sadie to the hospital game room. Later, her praise of Mapletown spotlights Sam’s contributions and underscores shifting credit between the partners.
  • George Masur
    Sam’s biological father, a Hollywood agent whose emotional distance highlights Sam’s complex identity and the surrogate family he finds with his grandparents and collaborators.
  • Ryu Watanabe
    Marx’s father, a worldly patron who affirms the Ichigo concept and hosts the Tokyo visit. His approval and resources help stabilize Unfair’s ambitions.
  • Mrs. Watanabe
    Marx’s mother, a textile designer who champions discipline and craft. Her aesthetics talk in Tokyo helps Sadie reframe failure as an apprenticeship to patience.
  • Simon Freeman
    Animator who, with Ant Ruiz, builds Counterpart High into a hit. His personal milestones and setbacks become catalysts for Mapleworld’s inclusive features and Unfair’s growth.
  • Antony "Ant" Ruiz
    Animator and Simon’s partner in life and work whose marriage storyline inspires Mapleworld’s marriage system. His reactions to public policy shifts humanize the team’s design decisions.
  • Aaron Opus
    Flamboyant CEO who offers the lucrative Opus deal, anoints Sam as the game’s public face, and nudges Ichigo toward marketable clarity. Embodies the trade-offs between reach and autonomy.
  • Jonas Lippman
    Cellar Door’s CEO who proposes a modest, creator-friendly alternative to Opus. Represents the path of slower growth with greater artistic freedom that Sadie favors.
  • Lola Maldonado
    Sam’s high school ex who returns post-amputation, helping him confront intimacy and pain without shame. Offers a gentler counterpoint to Sam’s isolation.
  • Abe Rocket
    A musician who briefly dates Sadie during the L.A. years. Their low-stakes romance contrasts with the consuming entanglements of work and past love.
  • Olga
    Ex–weightlifting champion hired to protect Sam after Mapleworld’s political stances trigger threats. Her presence marks the cost of making a virtual polis in the real world.
  • Naomi
    Sadie’s daughter, born after the studio’s most turbulent period. Her presence reframes Sadie’s priorities even as Sadie continues to define herself through making games.
  • Adam Worth
    Co-creator of Our Infinite Days whose pitch Sam adopts after Marx’s death. His collaboration helps Sam step into the producer role Marx once held.
  • Charlotte Worth
    Co-creator of Our Infinite Days who uncovers Sadie’s hidden Macbeth cameo of Marx. Her discovery reignites Sam’s creative hope and connection to Sadie’s work.
  • Mayor Mazer
    Sam’s Mapleworld avatar and the platform’s welcoming face. As a personable guide and de facto mayor, he embodies Unfair’s experiment in kinder, better-governed virtual community.

Themes

Gabrielle Zevin’s novel traces a lifelong collaboration complicated by ambition, injury, love, and the strange consolations of play. Across hospital wards, dorm rooms, studios, and online worlds, the book asks what games can do that life will not: offer resets, fairness, and the chance to become someone else—if only for a while.

  • The ecstasy and cost of collaboration. Sam and Sadie’s bond begins in a hospital game room and matures through the making of Ichigo, where Marx’s invisible labor (logistics, testing, care) becomes the glue. Credit and authorship are persistently fraught: Opus markets Sam as the auteur, Sadie shoulders sequels, and their partnership splinters over Both Sides and later over Master of the Revels. Marx’s death exposes how much their art depended on his stewardship.
  • Games as moral machines—and counterworlds to unfair life. From Sadie’s Solution (where winning implicates the player) to Ichigo (a homecoming that scars and ages the hero), the book treats design as ethics. Mapleworld’s inclusive marriages, conservation, and protest mechanics turn a social MMO into a laboratory for justice, culminating in Mazer’s claim that virtual worlds can be “more moral” than the real. The recurring maxim—“hard, but fair”—defines what good games promise and life withholds.
  • Identity, performance, and the mask of the avatar. Ichigo’s genderlessness invites universal identification before marketing insists on a “real boy.” Sam reinvents himself as Mayor Mazer and later as the showman “Mazer”; he even courts Sadie in Pioneers as Dr. Edna Daedalus. Debates over cultural borrowing (Hokusai, anime stylings) and Sam’s mixed-race background highlight how play enables fluid selves—and how commerce reimposes labels.
  • Pain, embodiment, and the labor of making. Sam’s crushed foot, amputation, and phantom pain shadow every creative decision—Mapletown teaches acceptance via an unwinnable race; Ichigo returns to parents who no longer recognize the changed body. Sadie’s abortion, depression, and Dov’s coercive power mark the toll on her artistry. The team’s bleeding fingers and burst vessels literalize how games are made from bodies as well as minds.
  • Time, chance, and the lure of the counterfactual. The title’s Macbeth echo haunts the book’s loops and restarts: Both Sides splits a life; mazes and Magic Eye images teach that meaning appears only from the right angle; Anna’s fatal detour and Marx’s hidden Macbeth Easter egg crystallize the ache of paths not taken. Even the closing exchanges—reconnecting over a tiny drive, another “title screen”—gesture toward the next playthrough.

Chapter Summaries

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