Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow — Marmalade and Mustardseed
Kate M
Character list, book club questions and resources to energize your book group discussion for Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. What is love? What is play? How does a career evolve? How do we nurture relationships? Explore these themes and others with online links to provide you
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Marmalade and Mustardseed
Wow! Wow! I closed the book and felt sad to leave the characters and no longer be with them in conversation and joy and sadness and love. I truly miss them.

I love this story. Perhaps because I was a female software developer. Perhaps because I know Cambridge and the streets they walked. Perhaps because I know multiple people who have ongoing pain and don’t consider their situation a disability. Perhaps because Zevin created characters that I was rooting for, that were so true to who they were, that were loving and caring and unaware of their own shortcomings and hyperaware of others’ supposed slights. Bravo Gabrielle Zevin. LOVE Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow!

I actually hesitated writing book club questions, as it felt a little too intrusive upon these characters’ lives. However, I think many folks in addition to me would like to share this novel with others and might like to hear some of the connections others made.

Note that these book club questions, like all of the guides, may contain spoilers. I recommend reading the book before the guide.

Online Resources

There are a lot of resources online about women in technology. Check out this Berkeley blog, Changing the Curve, Women in Computing which shares a lot of data on the trends of women in computing from education through careers.

You can check out a 3 minute youTube on the history of of video games. It’s on Kidsview and it’s an entertaining and quick summary.

If you would like to hear Gabrielle Zevin talk about the book then I highly recommend a recorded event at RJ Booksellers. I found Zevin completely engaging! Curiously, Zevin says that she prefers reading a book without knowing much about the author. So you may want to hold off on watching her talk or reading a Modern Love column that she wrote titled, The Secret to Marriage Is Never Getting Married until after you've read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Though I recommend both! In the bookstore, she talks about variations in love and why she wants to write about the many types of love stories that people can encounter. She also talks about video games as a storytelling experience and the wide range of online gaming including thinking of Instagram and other online experiences as gaming. She had many fascinating asides on gaming, women’s novels, the intersection of art and technology and how the book is as much about being a person as it is about games.

I also enjoyed the New York Times column Gabrielle Zevin is Not Going to Post This Article on Zevin’s approach to social media.

Get your facts on disability for your location. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducts surveys and published data on the prevalence of disability. According to their data, 1 in 4 adults in the United States lives with a disability.

The nonprofit Understood focuses on individuals who learn and think differently. While Sam has a physical disability, I found much of this blog on Understanding Invisible Disabilities in the Workplace a good resouce for learning about why folks stay silent on their disability, especially at work, and ways in which folks with a disability may gain a sense of belonging with positive employment practices.

Characters

Sam Masur/Mazer: Korean American artist who attends Harvard and becomes game designer

Anna Lee: Sam’s mother

Dong Hyun: Sam’s grandfather

Bong Cha Lee: Sam’s grandmother

Marx Watanabe: Sam’s roommate at Harvard and manager of Unfair Games

Sadie Green: software developer from Los Angeles who attends M.I.T. and becomes game designer

Alice: Sadie’s older sister

Freda: Sadie’s grandmother

Dov Mizrah: married M.I.T. faculty and Sadie’s lover

Abe Rocket: Sadie’s boyfriend early in Los Angeles

Zoe: Marx’s longest romantic relationship

Lola: Sam’s prom date in high school

Ant and Simon: software developers at Unfair Games who get married in San Francisco and in Mapleworld

Moments in Time

1974: Marx and Sam born

1984: Sam and his mother move to Los Angeles

mid 1990’s: Marx and Sam start at Harvard

1996: Sam and Sadie start Ichigo

2005: Marx is shot

Discussion Topics

The following are just a few book club questions to get your conversation started. Make the connections that are most meaningful for your book group.

Disability

Sam’s physical disability is woven throughout the novel in the real world and in their gaming. From the moment he meets Marx he wants to keep his mangled foot hidden from his roommate.

“The main thing Sam did not wish Marx to know about him was that he had a disability, though Sam did not think of it as a disability— other people had disabilities; Sam had ‘the thing with my foot.’” page 307

“The reason he hadn’t called them when he’d first woken up in the hospital was because he was embarrassed.” page 117

And in his gaming, Sam creates Mapletown in Both Sides where Alice is the main character and is a sick kid. He thinks of the healthy and able-bodied who get to leave the hospital/Mapletown and go back to the real world/Myre Landing.

“Alice’s illness and treatment, which comprised many of the Mapletown side quest and levels, was given the kind of corpuscular detail that could only have come from someone who had been chronically ill and understood the indignities of hospital life.” page 185

“Mapletown was, for Sam, the story of his pain, in the present and in the past.” page 186

How many people do you know who are dealing with pain on a regular basis and prefer to keep it hidden or at least not share their pain widely? Why do so many folks view having disability as a shortcoming or something not to be discussed? Why do we feel embarrassed to ask for help for a friend? Does society look upon pain as a shortcoming? As something others don’t want to catch? As a hinderance to activities and experiences?

Are folks who experience pain or are less ambulatory or don’t hear or see clearly or have any other physical differences a part of the spaces you inhabit? How can we create spaces where people feel a sense of belonging and connection irrespective of any disability they may bring?

Career Trajectory

Sam, Sadie and Marx start their own company from the heart of what they love doing— developing computer games. Their job followed their interest and the company was created organically

So often we use the phrase “career path” as if our employment plan is a neatly trimmed path for us to follow. In reality, at some points in our lives we may search for a specific job or a job in a specific place. Yet at other points, we may follow a co-worker or manager we appreciate working with. Perhaps an unexpected opportunity will appear in a chance connection. Or while getting around one barrier to employment, we end up in somewhere else entirely. Or, as is often the case, a job is abruptly ended due to our health or family change or a company going out of business.

How has your path evolved over time? What were the inflection points where you headed in a new direction?

A failure at work can be an opening to a new direction, new idea, better implementation.

“‘You go back to work. You take advantage of the quiet time that a failure allows you… You try again. You fail better.’” page 219

I tell employees that I manage,

“Don’t make the same mistake twice. Make new mistakes.”

When have you allowed an error to hold you back in a job and when have you used it as a springboard to try something new?

Friendship and Love

Freda cautions her granddaughter Sadie,

“‘It is not possible to receive charity from a friend.” page 23

When Sadie is depressed, Sam shows up at her apartment day after day, to show that he is present and that he cares.

Sam and Sadie are each other’s oldest friends and as young people supported one another at their lowest moments.

“‘Promise me, we won’t ever do this again,’ Sadie said. ‘Promise me, that no matter what happens, no matter what dumb thing we supposedly perpetrate on each other, we won’t ever go six years without talking to each other. Promise me you’ll always forgive me, and I promise I’ll always forgive you.’ These, of course, are the kind of vows young people feel comfortable making when they have no idea what life has in store for them.” page 59

Have you ever made such a vow explicitly or implicitly? Has it been difficult to keep? What are the ‘dumb’ things that have been perpetrated upon you that have been hardest to forgive? What have you perpetrated upon others?

“They had the rare kind of friendship that allowed for a great deal of privacy within it. One of the reasons they had become such good friends originally was because she had not insisted he tell his sad stories to satisfy her own curiosity. The least he could do was return the favor.” page 63

and later Sadie says to Sam,

“‘Because we never say anything real to each other. We play games, and we talk about games, and we talk about making games, and we don’t know each other at all.’” page 209

Sam doesn’t tell Sadie he knows Dov was her teacher and lover. Sam doesn’t tell Sadie about the immense pain he is in both before and after his foot is amputated and his phantom pain. Sam doesn’t tell Sadie that he choses to live where he does in L.A. to be near his grandparents, hospital and physical therapists. Marx covers for Sam repeatedly for instance saying it was Marx who got Dead Sea out of the jewel case.

What do you think? Have you had these types of relationships? Does a great deal of privacy lead to a lasting, strong friendship?

Sam tells Marx,

“‘It’s more than romantic. it’s better than romance. It’s friendship.’” page 91

Relationships takes nurturing. And often, as with Sam’s friendship towards Marx, one or both friends forget to nurture.

“Sam had grown so accustomed to Marx’s assistance that it probably went unacknowledged more than it should have,” page 55

Sam and Sadie’s relationship becomes extremely strained as they are each unaware of their own shortcomings while hyperaware of the others’ supposed slights.

Has this happened in your friendships? In your love relationships? How have your relationships evolved overtime? How have you nurtured a fading friendship? When have you and when has someone else been the nurturer in a relationship? How do friendship and love intertwine in your life and from your perspective?

Play

I loved the positive focus on play throughout Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and the life lessons that are imbued through game playing.

“To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk. It means allowing yourself to be open, to be exposed, to be hurt… To play requires trust and love.” page 21

Play is life in so many ways. I am as present as ever when I am at play. Watching children play, I recognize their complete presence— whether in a game of chase or make believe or whatever, children at play embody the present to me.

“And the truth of any game— it can only exist at the moment that it is being played.” page 82

“he could remember thinking that the best thing about games is that they could be fairer than life.” page 127

How do you view play? What type of play is most captivating to you? How has the essence of play changed over your life? Who are the most playful people you know? How can we hold on to the benefits of playfulness as we age?

What do you think of online games? Was your gaming perspective reinforced, changed or unchanged from reading the novel?

I laughed when I read,

“A game she often played with herself to pass the time was to try to figure out the relationships between patients and visitors.” page 119

My husband and I play this game frequently— always while hiking, often when in a restaurant or walking around a town, we speculate with one another the relationships among people in a group we pass.

What games do you play?

Women in Technology

In the novel, Sadie and Hannah are the only two women in Dov’s seminar.

How much has changed? What hasn’t changed?

Women were slightly over 1/3 of the class when Sadie attended in the 1990s. Even as women are slightly over half of all college graduates in the 2020s, there are even fewer female software graduates now than there were when Sadie and Sam were in school.

MORE WOMEN EARN BACHELOR’S DEGREES THAN MEN