Super Mario Brothers Karamazov: literature begins to take gaming seriously

Early on in Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, one of the trio of lead characters gives a fictional interview to a very real video games publication. The troubled but passionate Samson Mazur tells the interviewer, "There is no more intimate act than play, even sex." This is an explosive statement, but a perfect one in the context of a novel that treasures the act of play and holds it sacred. In some ways, this is a thesis statement for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow itself: the novel opening its heart, and showing you what it is truly about. Video games are seldom treated in literature as a site of emotion, but in Zevin's work they are the very landscape that the full spectrum of relationships, grief, and love play out in.