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Tomorrow (novel)
Encyclopedia
Tomorrow is a novel by Graham Swift
first published in 2007
about the impending disclosure of a family secret. Set in Putney
, London
on the night of Friday, June 16, 1995, the novel takes the form of an interior monologue by a 49 year-old mother addressed to her sleeping teenage children. It takes her a few hours—from late at night until dawn—to collect her thoughts and rehearse what she and her husband, who is asleep next to her, are going to tell their son and daughter on the following morning, which for the latter will amount to a rewriting of the family history reaching back as far as 1944. The family narrative completed, the novel ends in the early hours of Saturday, June 17, 1995, before anybody has stirred.
to fight in the Second World War
. He is shot down over Germany
, survives, and spends several months in a prisoner-of-war camp
. In January 1945, while he is still away from home, his son Mike is born.
After the war and his safe return to England, Pete becomes a successful entrepreneur. Mike, who remains an only child, develops an interest in nature quite early in life and eventually, in the 1960s, decides to read Biology
at the recently opened University of Sussex
. There, in 1966, he meets Paula Campbell, who has come from London to study English Literature and Art, and their relationship soon turns out to be much more than just a fling.
Paula is the only child of a divorced High Court judge
with Scottish
roots. That man, "Grandpa Dougie," born shortly after the turn of the century, contributes to the war effort by deciphering code
somewhere in the English countryside. There, already in his mid-forties, he falls for Fiona McKay, a young secretary with pretty legs who is twenty years his junior, and marries her. Paula, also born in 1945, is sent to a girls' boarding school
. Already during her years at school Paula feels his father's growing estrangement from his wife, a development which culminates in divorce and "Grandma Fiona" running off with a man her own age "dripping with some kind of oil-derived, Texan
-Aberdonian
wealth". After that, Paula hardly ever sees or talks to her own mother again. Just as Mike, she remains an only child
. After finishing school, she decides to go on to Sussex University.
In tune with the spirit of the age, both Mike and Paula adopt a promiscuous lifestyle
during their student days. However, they realise immediately after their first meeting that they are meant for each other and, deeply in love, decide to become monogamous
and to spend the rest of their lives together. They get married in 1970 at the age of 25 and gradually start pursuing their respective careers—Mike as the editor of a struggling science journal, Paula as an art dealer
.
In 1972, Paula eventually goes off the pill as they both wish to have children. When Paula does not become pregnant, the couple decide to have themselves tested:
Mike's diagnosed infertility
prompts them to remain childless (rather than try to adopt children) and to stay together, Paula suppressing the biological urge to procreate and look for a different partner. However, they decide not to inform anybody of the new situation, not even their own parents, who in turn never broach so delicate a subject with their children and just wait passively for the big announcement. In the meantime, when a neighbour offers them a cat
they take her up on it and call him Otis, after recently deceased Otis Redding
. Otis becomes the focal point of their married life, so much so that when Paula takes him to the vet
she is bluntly told that Otis is their "child substitute".
The vet becomes Paula's confidant
(and lover, but just for one night), and he advises her to reconsider her abandoned wish to have a child while pointing her to the options available to her through the fledgling field of reproductive medicine. In the end Mike and Paula make up their minds to give it a try, Paula is artificially inseminated
, and in 1979, after her own father's and Otis's death, gives birth to twin
s whom they christen Nick and Kate. Again, they do not tell anybody about how their children were conceived
, especially not that their natural father is "Mr S", an anonymous sperm donor
.
As the new day is dawning, sleepless Paula is aware of the fact that the biggest revelation yet in the lives of her two children is imminent. She also makes a mental note to explain to them that they should decide wisely whether to tell anybody the news or not as the implications would be far-reaching: Grandma Helen, for one, might feel cheated out of her grandchildren. On the other hand, Paula can well imagine that her mother-in-law, by sheer maternal instinct, has known about their secret all along.
novel, The Light of Day, but that the sujet of Tomorrow did not lend itself to the kind of narrative used by Swift.
For example, Adam Mars-Jones
focuses on Swift's holding back vital information from the reader so that at any given point in the novel they want to know "not what will happen next but what has happened in the first place". This, Mars-Jones argues, worked very well in The Light of Day but fails utterly in Tomorrow: "If you're going to withhold a secret for many pages, it had better deliver a frisson when it comes. In practice this means that it must concern sex or death, and preferably both." However, "the secret is ordinary and wouldn't merit airtime on the most timidly confrontational reality show
."
What is more, Mars-Jones detects a cruel streak in Paula, something which was obviously not intended by Swift. No loving mother would keep her almost grown-up children in the dark for 150 pages (the equivalent of several hours of continual talk full of foreboding) and only then divulge the real reason for their unusual meeting: "This would be a sadistic scenario if it was possible to take it seriously. The disproportion between the slim story and its overcontrolled telling is [...] on a par with buying a tank to mow the lawn."
Lionel Shriver
, who has "never had the privilege of reviewing a Graham Swift novel before, and I'm a fan", admits that "now I finally get my mitts on a Swift, and I hate it." About the character of Paula, Shriver deplores that the "apologetic, alternatingly gushy and beseeching style seems artificially female—like a man's idea of a woman's voice. This is disconcerting, since Swift has crafted persuasive female characters before. But Paula is female with such a vengeance that she borders on parody. This woman is dull, trying, and signally incapable of ponying up the sharp lines and insightful asides that make a novel enjoyable along the way. Maybe we should let her keep her secret."
In the same vein, Carol Birch
, calling the book "a disappointment," notes that Tomorrow "hangs on the device of a secret about to be disclosed, blazed before us from the outset as potentially life-shattering, and trailed like a banner. When it comes, the revelation feels a bit of a cheat: what you'd guessed at, only dismissed as too obvious." As we are told by Paula at one point in the novel that her husband Mike is "like a man finding it in him to sleep on the eve of his execution", Birch surmises that "perhaps he sleeps so soundly because there really is nothing too much to worry about."
Birch claims that teenage children would wince at the kind of confession Paula is about to make: "It's toe-curling, too, when she regales them with how wonderful sex is for her and their dad. 'I have to confess it, a great lust for your father, for your father's body,' for this man with whom 'I made the tenderest of sweetest love just two hours ago.' Believe me, Paula, your 16-year-olds don't wish to know this."
Only Anne Enright
goes a step further and says that, once the secret is out of the bag, "we are free to stop guessing and start enjoying the novel's more delicate truths" as the book "weaves and undoes its quiet magic, making and scattering different kinds of 'family
' [...] This is part of Swift's overwhelming honesty as a writer: he writes the way that life goes. He describes a married couple who are well off, content in their working lives and still ardent in bed. The world must contain many such people, though fiction does not—as though happiness
were the most inadmissible secret of all."
John Crace
has condensed the novel into 700 words in his column, "The Digested Read" ("The digested read, digested: Either she takes the Mogadon
or I do.").
Graham Swift
Graham Colin Swift FRSL is a British author. He was born in London, England and educated at Dulwich College, London, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York. He was a friend of Ted Hughes...
first published in 2007
2007 in literature
The year 2007 in literature involves some significant new books.-Events:*November 19 - First Kindle e-book reader released.*December 11 - Terry Pratchett informs fans on-line that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.-Literature:...
about the impending disclosure of a family secret. Set in Putney
Putney
Putney is a district in south-west London, England, located in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated south-west of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on the night of Friday, June 16, 1995, the novel takes the form of an interior monologue by a 49 year-old mother addressed to her sleeping teenage children. It takes her a few hours—from late at night until dawn—to collect her thoughts and rehearse what she and her husband, who is asleep next to her, are going to tell their son and daughter on the following morning, which for the latter will amount to a rewriting of the family history reaching back as far as 1944. The family narrative completed, the novel ends in the early hours of Saturday, June 17, 1995, before anybody has stirred.
Plot summary
Mike Hook is a wartime child. His father, "Grandpa Pete," and his mother, "Grandma Helen," both hardly turned 20, hastily get married in 1944 just before Pete rejoins the RAFRoyal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
to fight in the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He is shot down over Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, survives, and spends several months in a prisoner-of-war camp
Prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...
. In January 1945, while he is still away from home, his son Mike is born.
After the war and his safe return to England, Pete becomes a successful entrepreneur. Mike, who remains an only child, develops an interest in nature quite early in life and eventually, in the 1960s, decides to read Biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
at the recently opened University of Sussex
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
. There, in 1966, he meets Paula Campbell, who has come from London to study English Literature and Art, and their relationship soon turns out to be much more than just a fling.
Paula is the only child of a divorced High Court judge
High Court judge
A High Court judge is a judge of the High Court of Justice, and represents the third highest level of judge in the courts of England and Wales. High Court judges are referred to as puisne judges...
with Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
roots. That man, "Grandpa Dougie," born shortly after the turn of the century, contributes to the war effort by deciphering code
Code (cryptography)
In cryptography, a code is a method used to transform a message into an obscured form, preventing those who do not possess special information, or key, required to apply the transform from understanding what is actually transmitted. The usual method is to use a codebook with a list of common...
somewhere in the English countryside. There, already in his mid-forties, he falls for Fiona McKay, a young secretary with pretty legs who is twenty years his junior, and marries her. Paula, also born in 1945, is sent to a girls' boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
. Already during her years at school Paula feels his father's growing estrangement from his wife, a development which culminates in divorce and "Grandma Fiona" running off with a man her own age "dripping with some kind of oil-derived, Texan
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
-Aberdonian
Aberdeen
Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....
wealth". After that, Paula hardly ever sees or talks to her own mother again. Just as Mike, she remains an only child
Only child
An only child is a person with no siblings, either biological or adopted. In a family with multiple offspring, first-borns, may be briefly considered only children and have a similar early family environment, but the term only child is generally applied only to those individuals who never have...
. After finishing school, she decides to go on to Sussex University.
In tune with the spirit of the age, both Mike and Paula adopt a promiscuous lifestyle
Promiscuity
In humans, promiscuity refers to less discriminating casual sex with many sexual partners. The term carries a moral or religious judgement and is viewed in the context of the mainstream social ideal for sexual activity to take place within exclusive committed relationships...
during their student days. However, they realise immediately after their first meeting that they are meant for each other and, deeply in love, decide to become monogamous
Monogamy
Monogamy /Gr. μονός+γάμος - one+marriage/ a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction...
and to spend the rest of their lives together. They get married in 1970 at the age of 25 and gradually start pursuing their respective careers—Mike as the editor of a struggling science journal, Paula as an art dealer
Art dealer
An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art. Art dealers' professional associations serve to set high standards for accreditation or membership and to support art exhibitions and shows.-Role:...
.
In 1972, Paula eventually goes off the pill as they both wish to have children. When Paula does not become pregnant, the couple decide to have themselves tested:
[...] We looked sadly and sympathetically at each other, as if one of us might have to choose, heads or tails, and one of us might have to lose. At this stage we still hoped.
But I have to say—and you must both be starting to muster an intense interest—that this was, in all we'd known so far, the worst moment of our lives. Little war babies to whom nothing especially dreadful, let alone warlike, had happened. The divorce of your parents, the death of an uncle—these things, for God's sake, aren't the end of the world. But this little crisis, even before we knew it was insuperable, was like a not so small end of the world. In one, strictly procreativeBiological reproductionReproduction is the biological process by which new "offspring" individual organisms are produced from their "parents". Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual organism exists as the result of reproduction...
sense, it might be exactly that. [...]
It was a blow, my darlings, a true blow. And where it truly hurts. It turned out there was a problem and that the problem was your dad's, not mine. [...]
Mike's diagnosed infertility
Infertility
Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
prompts them to remain childless (rather than try to adopt children) and to stay together, Paula suppressing the biological urge to procreate and look for a different partner. However, they decide not to inform anybody of the new situation, not even their own parents, who in turn never broach so delicate a subject with their children and just wait passively for the big announcement. In the meantime, when a neighbour offers them a cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
they take her up on it and call him Otis, after recently deceased Otis Redding
Otis Redding
Otis Ray Redding, Jr. was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger and talent scout. He is considered one of the major figures in soul and R&B...
. Otis becomes the focal point of their married life, so much so that when Paula takes him to the vet
Veterinarian
A veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon , is a professional who treats disease, disorder and injury in animals....
she is bluntly told that Otis is their "child substitute".
The vet becomes Paula's confidant
Confidant
The confidant is a character in a story that the lead character confides in and trusts. Typically, these consist of the best friend, relative, doctor or boss.- Role :...
(and lover, but just for one night), and he advises her to reconsider her abandoned wish to have a child while pointing her to the options available to her through the fledgling field of reproductive medicine. In the end Mike and Paula make up their minds to give it a try, Paula is artificially inseminated
Artificial insemination
Artificial insemination, or AI, is the process by which sperm is placed into the reproductive tract of a female for the purpose of impregnating the female by using means other than sexual intercourse or natural insemination...
, and in 1979, after her own father's and Otis's death, gives birth to twin
Twin
A twin is one of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy. Twins can either be monozygotic , meaning that they develop from one zygote that splits and forms two embryos, or dizygotic because they develop from two separate eggs that are fertilized by two separate sperm.In contrast, a fetus...
s whom they christen Nick and Kate. Again, they do not tell anybody about how their children were conceived
Fertilisation
Fertilisation is the fusion of gametes to produce a new organism. In animals, the process involves the fusion of an ovum with a sperm, which eventually leads to the development of an embryo...
, especially not that their natural father is "Mr S", an anonymous sperm donor
Sperm donation
Sperm donation is the provision by a man, , of his sperm, with the intention that it be used to impregnate a woman who is not usually the man's sexual partner, in order to produce a child....
.
As the new day is dawning, sleepless Paula is aware of the fact that the biggest revelation yet in the lives of her two children is imminent. She also makes a mental note to explain to them that they should decide wisely whether to tell anybody the news or not as the implications would be far-reaching: Grandma Helen, for one, might feel cheated out of her grandchildren. On the other hand, Paula can well imagine that her mother-in-law, by sheer maternal instinct, has known about their secret all along.
Reviews
Tomorrow was released in the spring of 2007 to mostly unfavourable reviews. In particular, critics noted that Swift had employed a narrative technique similar to that of his successful 20032003 in literature
The year 2003 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Peter Ackroyd - The Clerkenwell Tales*Atsuko Asano - No...
novel, The Light of Day, but that the sujet of Tomorrow did not lend itself to the kind of narrative used by Swift.
For example, Adam Mars-Jones
Adam Mars-Jones
Adam Mars-Jones is a British novelist and critic.Mars-Jones was born in London, to parents William Mars-Jones, the Welsh High Court judge and President of the London Welsh Trust, and Sheila . Mars-Jones studied at Westminster School, and read Classics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge...
focuses on Swift's holding back vital information from the reader so that at any given point in the novel they want to know "not what will happen next but what has happened in the first place". This, Mars-Jones argues, worked very well in The Light of Day but fails utterly in Tomorrow: "If you're going to withhold a secret for many pages, it had better deliver a frisson when it comes. In practice this means that it must concern sex or death, and preferably both." However, "the secret is ordinary and wouldn't merit airtime on the most timidly confrontational reality show
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
."
What is more, Mars-Jones detects a cruel streak in Paula, something which was obviously not intended by Swift. No loving mother would keep her almost grown-up children in the dark for 150 pages (the equivalent of several hours of continual talk full of foreboding) and only then divulge the real reason for their unusual meeting: "This would be a sadistic scenario if it was possible to take it seriously. The disproportion between the slim story and its overcontrolled telling is [...] on a par with buying a tank to mow the lawn."
Lionel Shriver
Lionel Shriver
-Early life and education:Lionel Shriver was born Margaret Ann Shriver on May 18, 1957 in Gastonia, North Carolina, to a deeply religious family . At age 15, she changed her name from Margaret Ann to Lionel because she did not like the name she had been given, and as a tomboy felt that a...
, who has "never had the privilege of reviewing a Graham Swift novel before, and I'm a fan", admits that "now I finally get my mitts on a Swift, and I hate it." About the character of Paula, Shriver deplores that the "apologetic, alternatingly gushy and beseeching style seems artificially female—like a man's idea of a woman's voice. This is disconcerting, since Swift has crafted persuasive female characters before. But Paula is female with such a vengeance that she borders on parody. This woman is dull, trying, and signally incapable of ponying up the sharp lines and insightful asides that make a novel enjoyable along the way. Maybe we should let her keep her secret."
In the same vein, Carol Birch
Carol Birch
Carol Birch is a British novelist and attended Keele University. The author of eleven novels, she won the 1988 David Higham Award for the Best First Novel of the Year for Life in the Palace, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize with The Fog Line in 1991, and she was long-listed for the 2003 ManBooker...
, calling the book "a disappointment," notes that Tomorrow "hangs on the device of a secret about to be disclosed, blazed before us from the outset as potentially life-shattering, and trailed like a banner. When it comes, the revelation feels a bit of a cheat: what you'd guessed at, only dismissed as too obvious." As we are told by Paula at one point in the novel that her husband Mike is "like a man finding it in him to sleep on the eve of his execution", Birch surmises that "perhaps he sleeps so soundly because there really is nothing too much to worry about."
Birch claims that teenage children would wince at the kind of confession Paula is about to make: "It's toe-curling, too, when she regales them with how wonderful sex is for her and their dad. 'I have to confess it, a great lust for your father, for your father's body,' for this man with whom 'I made the tenderest of sweetest love just two hours ago.' Believe me, Paula, your 16-year-olds don't wish to know this."
Only Anne Enright
Anne Enright
Anne Enright is a Booker Prize-winning Irish author. She has published essays, short stories, a non-fiction book and four novels. Before her novel The Gathering won the 2007 Man Booker Prize, Enright had a low profile in Ireland and the United Kingdom, although her books were favourably reviewed...
goes a step further and says that, once the secret is out of the bag, "we are free to stop guessing and start enjoying the novel's more delicate truths" as the book "weaves and undoes its quiet magic, making and scattering different kinds of 'family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
' [...] This is part of Swift's overwhelming honesty as a writer: he writes the way that life goes. He describes a married couple who are well off, content in their working lives and still ardent in bed. The world must contain many such people, though fiction does not—as though happiness
Happiness
Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources....
were the most inadmissible secret of all."
John Crace
John Crace (writer)
John Crace is a British journalist writing for The Guardian.Crace is probably best known for his "The Digested Read" column, in which he reviews new fiction by condensing it into short narratives of about 700 words in the style of the book itself...
has condensed the novel into 700 words in his column, "The Digested Read" ("The digested read, digested: Either she takes the Mogadon
Nitrazepam
Nitrazepam is a type of benzodiazepine drug and is marketed in English-speaking countries under the following brand names: Alodorm, Arem, Insoma, Mogadon, Nitrados, Nitrazadon, Ormodon, Paxadorm, Remnos, and Somnite...
or I do.").
Read on
- Siri HustvedtSiri HustvedtSiri Hustvedt is an American novelist and essayist. Hustvedt is the author of a book of poetry, five novels, two books of essays, and a work of non-fiction...
's The Sorrows of an AmericanThe Sorrows of an AmericanThe Sorrows of an American is Siri Hustvedt's fourth novel. It was first published in 2008 and is about a Norwegian American family and their troubles...
(20082008 in literatureThe year 2008 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 1 - In the 2008 New Year Honours, Hanif Kureishi , Jenny Uglow , Peter Vansittart and Debjani Chatterjee are all rewarded for "services to literature".*June 15 - Gore Vidal, asked in a New York Times...
), where another family secret which is neither surprising nor satisfying is uncovered. - For an overview, see Family life in literatureFamily life in literature*Grant Allen: The Woman Who Did *Nina Bawden: The Birds on the Trees...
.