Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

September 2022 - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is about gamers, software developers, and the tech industry.

I don't own a PlayStation or an Xbox. I have never played Mario, or Grand Theft Auto, or Call of Duty. But I like games. I play Sudoku and Spelling Bee on my phone. I play card games and board games often. So am I a gamer?

Either way, it's not a prerequisite for enjoying Gabrielle Zevin's latest novel.

Zevin takes us inside video game development from concept to graphic design to release. She shows us parallels between creating stories and creating games. The reader is immersed in the world of tech from California to MIT. There are references to The Oregon Trail, Mario Brothers, and the tabletop video games that used to be in your neighborhood pizza parlor. The importance of choosing or creating the right game engine weaves through a thread that includes Sadie's former professor and ex-lover. But the gaming details are delivered within a story about life, love, friendship, and hope.

The trope of the loner who spends their time in their parents' basement pursuing the high score and repetitively playing the same game to learn where the Easter eggs are hidden, rescue the princess, or solve the riddle gets new depth. We get an insider's perspective and see that there is community in the online gaming world. Virtual worlds can offer an escape, a safe and predictable place. The moment of landing Mario on the tip of the flagpole can seem like a meaningless goal, but the sense of achievement is an authentic and rare moment of joy.

We follow Sam and Sadie from when they first met while playing video games through their first effort creating a game. Marx enters their lives during college, and the three are bound together through work and love, and video games. But, as the years unfold, they misinterpret each other and misunderstand and hurt each other.

In the way that the novel Cloud Cuckoo Land (Back Porch Blog December 2021) related the importance of story to human understanding, Zevin explores how the game experience can offer a similar path. Every game is an opportunity for a second chance and a third chance. Infinite chances to start over, make a different choice, a better choice. A new life is waiting in the next game, a clean slate, a fresh start. And this time will be different because you come to the game with new knowledge and experience. Endless reincarnations. An ancient soul.

Sam, Sadie, and Marx show us how forgiveness, the willingness to try again, and the chance to make things right are what we find in true love and true friendships.

We just need to keep playing. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

August 2022 - The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

Over the last few years, I have taken anti-racism and racial equity courses and toured civil rights museums across the South. It was eye-opening to dive into the history of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow, and it acquainted me with a perspective that wasn't taught in most high school civics classes. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers is a classic American family saga from the perspective of the enslaved and disenfranchised.

The novel follows the lineage of Ailey Pearl Garfield, beginning with the natives who lived on the land that became known as Georgia and following the European settlers and the enslaved Africans who came to call it home.

Beautifully written, the book delves into the complicated intertwining of natives, enslaved peoples, and Europeans. The novel details the history of stolen land and stolen lives, the love, the cruelty, and the arrogance of colonization with authenticity.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is a history book made whole, flesh on the bones of facts, context for content. We see and hear the toll of slavery not just during the time of the enslaved but across the span of history.

The practice of murdering African Americans for looking at a white woman the wrong way came into being when slavery ended. Only after emancipation, when blacks no longer had a market value, did whites murder black men for minor offenses. The context is enlightening. While we may be aware that interracial marriage was once illegal. But Jeffers points out that there were no legal repercussions for a white man if he raped a black woman, paid her for sex, kept her in a house, or had children with her. But if he loved her and wanted to marry her, that was against the law. The framework completes the story and lets us grasp the irony and horror of the times filling in the gaps and omissions of our American history classes.

Though the novel centers on a family of African American heritage, the novel might be considered a treatise on the many ways that power corrupts. The power dynamic of white Europeans exploiting natives and Africans is expected, but we also witness the power imbalance with regard to women and children. The Garfield family history contains murder, lynching, child sexual abuse, rape, and disfigurement.

The novel makes it clear that owning another human being is a power that corrupts the owners. The nuance in The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois is that the corruption is not only revealed in cruelty and fearlessness but also in the way the power imbalance corrupts love. The mixed-race reality of the families challenges the white narrative of separation. The complications of all human interactions are revealed as we follow the Garfields, the Hargraces, and the Franklins through the years.

This book is over 800 pages, and its scope matches the span. The novel addresses racism, civil rights, feminism, drug abuse, mental health, education, sex, sexual assault, love, and family.

And you may not be surprised to discover that there is also a healthy supply of words from W.E.B. Du Bois and a debate as to whether or not his merits supersede those of Booker T. Washington. Set aside some time for The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. It's not a quick read, but worth the time.

Lessons in Chemistry

July 2022 - Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

While walking around Park Circle, our eclectic North Charleston neighborhood, I discovered Itinerant Literate Books. I must be out of the loop since it's been around since 2015. In my defense, it started as a bookmobile and I'm not sure how long it's been in its current location. It's a small store with a "curated" selection of books. Their entire inventory might fit in my car. I was tempted to try. It's hard to choose just one. 

But I did. I chose Lessons in Chemistry. 

I didn't know anything about this novel. I didn't read anything about it, not a review, not the blurbs on the cover. The sticker on the cover announced that it was selected for the Good Morning America Book Club. I didn't know Good Morning America had a book club. I liked the bright neon cover. It looked like it would be sassy. Was it a romance? I wasn't sure. 

But with the Supreme Court decisions and my general dissatisfaction with how things are going in the world, I needed a lighthearted distraction. And Lessons in Chemistry looked like it might be fun.

Lessons in Chemistry turned out to be a lesson in synchronicity. There were so many personal connections, I hardly know where to start.

But I think I'll start with the last thing I learned about this book. Lessons in Chemistry is Bonnie Garmus's debut novel, and Bonnie Garmus is 64 years old! Isn't that amazing? And inspiring? And something worth celebrating in and of itself? On top of that, Lessons in Chemistry is fun and sassy and subversive!

I love subversive. 

The novel is set in 1960s California, where Elizabeth Zott is a chemist. She is brilliant, but her work is continually demeaned by the men she works with until she meets Calvin Evans, also a brilliant chemist. It is a romance! Well, sort of…but not a regular one by any stretch.

There is romance but the novel also boldly calls out the illogical nature of religion, the patriarchy, the education system, and the institution of marriage. Sounds like heavy stuff, but the novel is playful and idiosyncratic. Societal dictates and circumstances continually beat down Elizabeth Zott, but she is a resilient woman. Nevertheless she persisted.

Elizabeth's dog, named Six-Thirty, reminded me of one of my early, early favorite books - maybe you know it, I'll Teach My Dog 100 Words by Michael K. Firth? Just last week, my cousin's four-year-old granddaughter brought this book to me as I sat on the couch in their beach rental at Isle of Palms. I read it in record time because she seemed to be losing interest. I don't want to give anything away, but the book is about teaching a dog 100 words.

Elizabeth is more ambitious and her dog is exceptional. Six-Thirty learns 391 words by Chapter 16 or as he tells you, he really understands 390.

Six-Thirty and the humans in the novel provide frequent reminders that people are animals, too. Maybe we could dispense with the idea that we humans are superior to every other species on the planet. Even though most of our dogs aren't going to be quite as capable as Six-Thirty, we might consider all the things the dog knows that we do not. As someone once said, "My dog knows several words in English and I know zero words in dog."

If you are at all interested in a fun read that questions tradition, suggests that women be treated as individuals, reminds us all of the challenges and importance of women in the home and at work, and feels a little like a grown-up version of A Series of Unfortunate Events, then pick up Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Gamus. It will make you laugh amid the tragedy.