Dreamland

“When I tell people I’m a farmer, most of them tilt their heads and look at me kind of funny. More often than not, they have no idea what to say next. If I tell people that my family owns a farm, however, they brighten and smile and start asking questions.”

Colby’s critique of superficiality in modern culture signals that he is not concerned only with appearances, though he understands that they can be important. The narrative also highlights this quality in Morgan, who is aware of social media’s limits in this regard. Passages like these establish Morgan and Colby’s shared values, illustrating why they are a good match.

“While things are constantly growing, other things are always decaying, and striving for that perfect balance sometimes feels like a nearly impossible task.”

In this passage, Colby introduces the novel’s motif of balance as he reflects on his responsibilities at the farm. The work never ends because to achieve balance requires constant attention. Sparks threads the concept of balance throughout the narrative, drawing consistent parallels between the natural world and creative work.

“And then there’s the fact that social media isn’t necessarily a good thing for teenage girls. There’s so much editing that what they’re seeing isn’t exactly real, but it’s hard for people to separate the fantasy. It’s not as though we just walk out and dance without practicing or that we don’t spend a lot of time perfecting our hair and makeup and outfits before we film. So what’s the point of being regarded as an influencer—or, God forbid, a role model—if it’s all kind of fake?”

Morgan’s ambivalence about being a social media influencer provides a complement to Colby’s observations on farming—characterizing each of them as mature and thoughtful about the world and their roles in it. Morgan understands the importance of a carefully-crafted public image, but she is also aware that it can have harmful effects when her followers don’t recognize it as such.

“Our lives were entirely different, and yet, somehow, we just seemed to click.”

Colby reflects on how he and Morgan are able to relate to each other despite the differences in their lives and backgrounds—Colby is a farmer from North Carolina who has struggled financially while Morgan comes from an affluent family in Chicago. They’re able to connect beyond the surface of their differences and discover common values as a result of their shared love of creating music and recognizing the joy it can bring to others, highlighting the importance the novel places on the Transformative Power of Creativity.

“It was as though the people who’d lived here had vanished into the ether one day, stealing away in the middle of the night, carrying only what they could.”

In this passage, Beverly describes the house that she believes she has rented for herself and Tommie, though she is eventually revealed to be at her own home in North Carolina. Beverly constructs a plausible reason for the house’s apparently abandoned state, but the language of vanishing “into the ether” also reflects Paige having lost touch with reality—it’s one of several moments threaded through the narrative that hint at Beverly’s true identity and mental state.

“For a few minutes there, it felt like I was lost in time.”

Morgan’s description of her kayak ride with Colby through the mangroves mirrors Colby’s own description of the moment as “both eerie and serene” and himself and Morgan paddling “in silence in what seemed to be another world” (129). Significantly, their responses to their experience are in sync. The moment is a symbolic one in the novel, as it portrays romantic love as a world in itself but one that must ultimately reconcile itself with the world outside of its protective circle.

“Little by little we worked our way to the finish, fading out in the same minor key in which the song opened. By the time we stopped, the sky beyond the sliding glass door had turned from blue to white, shot through with pink highlights.”

Colby’s description of working on a song with Morgan and losing himself in the process echoes his description of the immersive experience of falling in love. Time dissolves as he and Morgan become lost in the processes. Just as Colby will need to reconcile his romance with Morgan with his love for and responsibility to his family, he’ll also need to reconcile his passion for music with his desire to keep the family farm going.

“I’ve finally accepted the idea that songs come only when they’re ready to come, never before that.”

Here, Colby explains the need to let the song come to him rather than trying to force something before it is ready to happen, which contrasts with Morgan’s method of careful scripting out her future moves. Sparks suggests that a balance of both is needed for creative production. This passage exemplifies the novel’s characterization of the dynamic between Morgan and Colby as complementary opposites. Each supplements the other, creating a productive dynamic and highlighting the novel’s motif of balance.

“Music was, I thought, a way for both of us to take charge of shaping our identities and to escape our traumas.”

Despite their many surface differences, both Morgan and Colby have had traumatic childhood experiences, and both turned to music as a balm. In addition to further demonstrating their complementarity, this passage emphasizes the novel’s theme of Love and Pain as Two Sides of the Same Coin. Morgan and Colby’s painful experiences pushed them to discover a love of music. In this context, pain and love cannot be disentangled from each other.

“‘Oh,’ she said, suddenly thinking about cameras and nightmares and too little sleep and not enough food, and in the rising heat of the morning, it was hard to keep all her thoughts straight.”

Initially, Beverly’s anxiety and the extreme measures she takes to hide her identity are attributed to her escape from a violent husband. As her narrative progresses, however, Sparks shifts her internal monologue to become increasingly disordered, as exemplified in the above passage, creating narrative tension that builds toward the reveal that Beverly is actually Paige experiencing an episode of psychosis.

“Back home, I knew, a storm like this would make me worry about the crops or the chickens or the roof of the greenhouse, but here and now I found the spectacle inspiring in an almost foreign way.”

In St. Petersburg, Colby observes the storm through the eyes of a lover rather than a farmer, highlighting the shift in perspective created by his distance from his everyday life. A farmer will inevitably see in the storm, a potential for to their livelihood, but as a man on vacation who is falling in love, Colby can appreciate and be inspired by the beauty of the moment. Like his and Morgan’s experience in the mangroves, the storm is a significant event that marks a turning point for Colby, leading to future growth for his character.

“There was, after all, more to life than work, and I realized I no longer wanted to be the person I’d recently become. I wanted to embrace those things that were important to me and worry less about the things that were beyond my control.”

Here, Colby reflects on how his love for Morgan is changing him. Having opened himself up to love, he can no longer accept the one-dimensional life that he had been living, consumed by responsibilities to the farm and his family. He is beginning the process of bringing into balance his internal and external needs.

“I was starting to grasp that love followed its own timeline and made even radical changes almost inevitable.”

Dreamland characterizes falling in love and creating art in similar terms. Earlier in the novel, Colby describes the patience necessary to allow a song to develop (see quote nine above). The Transformative Power of Creativity is a result of the dynamic between the artist(s) and the medium. Love too involves a dynamic of reciprocity, a spark that is given room to grow into something more.

“In the silver moonlight, she could see the barn, dark and ominous, but the fear felt hallucinatory.”

As Beverly looks at the barn that she believes is “off-limits,” she describes it in dangerous terms—language that hints at the reveal to come and demonstrates how Paige is processing elements of reality within her hallucination. The barn, readers learn later, is where Paige’s studio is located. Perhaps being confronted with the site where Paige creates beautiful art appreciated by customers around the world is too distressing for her while dissociated from reality. Thus, she constructs an explanation for why she must avoid it.

“She should have provided him with a normal home and a normal life, but now she was about to uproot him again, because she’d made mistakes that a good mother wouldn’t have made.”

Beverly frequently expresses guilt for her “mistakes” and for being a “bad” mother who did not keep her son safe. The passage above exemplifies how the narrative uses language to reinforce what the reader believes (that Beverly is on the run from her abusive husband) while actually referring to a real-life parallel in Paige’s psyche. The disconnect enables Sparks to create tension, suspense, and anxiety in the narrative and escalates the impact of the reveal that Tommie has died.

“Afterward, we walked the beach and waded in the surf to cool off, and it was easy to imagine a life with her in the future, if only I had the courage to make it possible.”

Colby avoids talking about the trauma he suffered as a young child who did not know his father and who lost his mother to suicide. He has portrayed his work-life imbalance as a consequence of needing to compensate for his uncle’s death and be present for Paige. The above passage is an example of a deeper truth leaking through his first-person narrative: Immersing himself in work and caring for family protects him from taking risks that could lead to failure, disappointment, or pain.

“The thing is, you don’t see yourself, either. You don’t see what I see. Or what the audience sees. And you also understand that music is something powerful, something that people all over the world can share, right? It’s like a language, a way to connect that’s bigger than you or me or anyone. Do you ever think about how much joy you could bring people? You’re too good to stay on the farm.”

Throughout his point-of-view chapters, Colby insists that his talent is nothing exceptional—a stance that protects him from the vulnerability of wanting. Despite drawing large crowds who request his original music, he sees Morgan as the true talent. She, however, sees his talent as something exceptional. She points this out to him not for his own aggrandizement but so that he can understand that his talent can bring joy to others.

“All of this was my fault. For going to Florida. For not calling every day, even though part of me knew I should have. And as my anger turned inward, I realized I hated myself, for had I been at home, my sister would be alive and well.”

Like Paige, Colby experiences guilt and self-recrimination, in his case because while he was away falling in love and dreaming of a different life, his sister almost lost hers. The narrative does not try to resolve his conflicted feelings but is content to acknowledge them, suggesting that, as with his work on the farm, Colby needs to find a balance. He cannot live only for others, but he also cannot live only for himself.

“From outward appearances, it seems as though nothing had happened, yet all I could think was that everything had been irrevocably altered.”

When he learns of Angie’s stroke, Colby repeats the sentiment almost verbatim that he expressed after meeting Morgan, pointing to the novel’s theme of Love and Pain as Two Sides of the Same Coin. In both cases, extreme circumstances—one positive and one negative—force him to confront the inevitability of change and the need to feel some sense of control during times of upheaval.

“I had to admit that it was a lot easier to clean with her help. Alone, I would have scrutinized every item, trying to figure out how it fit into the delusion, but Morgan simply kept moving forward until each task was completed.”

The support Morgan offers Colby when she arrives in North Carolina during his sister and aunt’s hospitalizations exemplifies the way Morgan and Colby are set up as complementary opposites. Where Morgan is more active, Colby is portrayed as more reactive. Alone, each can get stuck in their patterns, but together, they create a productive dynamic, supplementing each other.

“When my thoughts turned to Morgan, my life felt complete; when I thought of Paige, the life I truly wanted felt as if it would always be out of reach. I sat with those contradictory feelings, alternately at peace and in turmoil, until the light of dawn seeped through the windows. When it was bright enough, I found some paper and a pen, and I scribbled out the lyrics that we’d written the night before.”

The inspiration for the song Colby writes during Morgan’s visit to North Carolina emphasizes the novel’s theme of Love and Pain as Two Sides of the Same Coin. Significantly, he sits with his conflicted feelings, allowing them to inspire his art. Though Colby’s passivity sometimes limits him in life, his ability to sit in a contradictory space also allows him enough patience for a song to develop.

“She didn’t finish but slipped the page into her purse, and for a long moment we simply stood together in the small town I knew I’d never escape, a place too small for Morgan’s future. I put my arm around her, watching as an osprey took flight over the lapping waves. It’s simple grace reminded me of Morgan paddling through the waterways in a place that already seemed far, far away.”

At the end of the novel, Colby tries to reject the idea of balance one final time, claiming he cannot fit Morgan into his world, and he cannot leave his world to become part of hers. The love he feels for his family has become a self-imposed prison in which he locks himself away. He imagines that Morgan is flying away from him into a new life, but she herself sees a different reality. Though both undergo changes across the narrative, their characters remain consistent in that she is more active and he more passive.

“And though our lives had diverged just as I’d predicted, I never forgot the decision I’d made on the night that Morgan and I first made love, when I resolved to make changes in my own life so I didn’t end up like my uncle. While that had to wait until I knew my aunt and Paige were going to recover, I like to think I kept my promise. I’d been able to make it to the coast to go surfing four times since my trip to Florida, and I set aside times on Fridays and Sundays to do nothing but play or write music, no matter how much work remained unfinished. I reconnected with a few old friends and met up with them on the occasional weekend night, even if it still sometimes felt like Groundhog Day.”

In the Epilogue, Colby begins to build balance into his life one step at a time, but while he claims to have made changes, his life continues to feel stagnant (as evidenced by his reference to the film Groundhog Day, in which a man relives the same life day after day). In reality, his and Morgan’s lives diverged not as he predicted but as he determined by choosing to break up with her.  The narrative implies that without his complementary opposite, Morgan, Colby’s ability to move forward and make meaningful changes are limited.