59 pages • 1 hour read
Nicholas SparksDreamland
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Colby”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: This section includes discussion of domestic violence and mental illness.
Twenty-five year-old Colby Mills introduces himself from a beach at the Don CeSar Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida: He is a farmer from Greenville, North Carolina, in town for three weeks to play at Bobby T’s Beach Bar. Orphaned as a young boy, he and his older sister, Paige, an artist, were raised by their aunt and uncle. A farmer with a passion for music, Colby’s uncle taught him how to play guitar, and Colby took to it immediately. During a rebellious phase in high school, he stopped helping at the farm and joined a band, but it eventually fell apart due to the lead singer’s ego and Colby resumed working at the farm. After his uncle died suddenly of a heart attack, he learned how much the farm was struggling economically and helped his grieving aunt put his uncle’s new ideas into effect. Now profitable again after being on the brink of bankruptcy, the farm raises organic cage-free eggs and grows heirloom tomatoes.
Farming consumes all of his time, but Colby is content with his life (7). During his first 10 days in Florida, he has noticed how the crowds at his shows have grown, but he is not “read[ing] too much into it” (2).
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
Colby notices that people seem more interested in him when he identifies himself as a farm owner rather than as a farmer. Playing gigs in Florida is meant to be a vacation—his first break in seven years—which his aunt and Paige insisted he take. Paige has returned home to live with her brother after a devastating end to her marriage. Colby reflects that his ex-girlfriend, Michelle, would have appreciated “this relaxed and healthy, non-working version of [him]” (18). Their breakup was drama-free, as neither was in love with the other.
The previous day, he had watched a pod of dolphins and noticed a group of attractive young women taking photos of each other with the dolphins in the background. One of them made eye contact with him and complimented his tattoos. Believing her out of his league, he smiled and moved on. When he looked back, she “offered a knowing smile,” and Colby blushed (21).
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Colby brings his beach chair back to the beach hoping to run into the woman from the previous day. He reflects that he should probably be taking advantage of the local tourist attractions and activities rather than waiting in vain for a woman to show up. Lost in his thoughts, he does not notice her approach until her shadow covers him. Looking down at him, she asks if he is the musician that she saw perform at Bobby T’s.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
Though not usually nervous around women, Colby feels “out of practice” (24). He and the woman immediately begin to banter about who has been paying attention to whom. Her name is Morgan Lee, 21, from Chicago, and on a college graduation trip with her friends staying at the Don CeSar, a nostalgic destination that she grew up visiting every year with her family. He shares that his family owns a farm. Before they part, she invites him to join her and her friends at a bar later. He says he might, but they both know he will be there. As she walks away, he asks her why she came to the beach to find him, and she says that she loves his voice and wanted to meet him in person.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary
Morgan’s confidence and self-possession impress Colby, who cannot recall having met anyone like her. Later, inspired by memories of her, he completes a draft of a song that had been giving him problems. When he goes to the bar to meet Morgan, she suggests they go somewhere quieter. After Morgan makes it clear that she has mace and has texted a photo of his license plate to her friends, they leave in his truck, exchanging life stories along the way. Morgan reveals that she was diagnosed with scoliosis as a child, leading her parents—who are both doctors—to become overprotective. To escape their hovering, she accelerated her studies, went to college early, and majored in vocal performance. When she asks about Colby’s music, he says it is “not going to happen” because of his family responsibilities (44).
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary
Arriving at the Don CeSar, they head back to the beach where they met, Morgan texts her location to her friends, then continues telling Colby about her future plans. With her parents’ financial help, she will be moving to Nashville in a few weeks to try to break into the music industry. Singing is her passion, which she discovered during the difficult years she spent in her back brace. She also has a dance group with her friends, Maria, Stacy, and Holly. Their TikTok accounts have more than eight million followers combined, but Morgan is ambivalent about social media, knowing it can be harmful to teenage girls, who see curated and highly edited videos, not reality.
Colby sings a song for her, inviting applause from guests at the hotel. Morgan’s friends arrive, prompting them to end their night. Driving back to his rental condo, Colby marvels at their ability to connect despite their very different lives and thinks that his sister Paige would like Morgan.
Part 1 Analysis
Colby’s first-person narratives comprise four of the novel’s seven parts along with the epilogue. His sections revolve around his love story with Morgan and the obstacles that the couple must navigate and overcome, including his family commitments. The first section begins with Colby’s inciting incident: meeting Morgan, signaling to the reader the importance of their encounter. Life begins anew for him on the day he first meets her, introducing the theme of The Transformative Power of Creativity, which the novel posits as analogous to the transformative power of love. Interacting with Morgan inspires Colby musically, and he experiences a breakthrough with a song he had been working on.
Colby downplays his achievements with the farm, his musical ability, and his potential to attract a beautiful, talented woman to minimize his regret that he cannot pursue his passions. If he can convince himself he is ordinary, he won’t feel the pain of failing to be extraordinary. He admits that he had dreamed of being discovered but also treats that dream as an adolescent fantasy that had to fall away when his family needed him to step into his uncle’s shoes, which introduces the theme The Bonds of Family. At the same time as he downplays his music, however, Colby is aware that his shows are drawing increasingly larger crowds and that his audience requests his original songs, not only the covers he plays. He insists that he is not “read[ing] too much into it,” but this response seems to be a defense mechanism to prevent him from experiencing disappointment or having to feel regret that he is unable to pursue music, which launches the theme of Love and Pain as Two Sides of the Same Coin (2). The denial of his talent and deep love for music positions Colby as an unreliable narrator who has created a narrative for his life that will protect him from pain.
In contrast, Morgan goes after what she wants without hesitation—she is active, whereas Colby is passive and reactive. His music is what draws Morgan to him. She sees him perform at Bobby T’s, loves his voice, and comes looking for him. Immediately, it is evident that she assumes more agency over her life than Colby does over his. He had noticed her the previous day but thought her out of his league and was caught off guard when she smiled at him and complimented his tattoos. While he was content to sit and wait to see if she appeared, she actively came looking for him. Colby’s passivity reinforces his tendency to self-protect, pointing to his traumatic backstory.
Colby also guards the trauma of his past and his family to protect himself and Paige from the judgement of others. Sharing stories with Paige that he usually keeps private signals the significance of their connection and becomes a kind of bridge through which he and Morgan bond despite their surface differences. Her upbringing was entirely different to his. She grew up affluent in Chicago with two overprotective parents (both doctors), while he was raised on a farm in North Carolina by his aunt and uncle who, though they loved him, were preoccupied with keeping their farm financially viable. Morgan’s trauma was medical rather than emotional, but it has made her a thoughtful and empathetic person who can see beyond surface impressions. From their first conversations, they dive into deep terrain about their backgrounds and the challenges each has faced, though Colby remains vague about the specific challenges he and his sister have navigated.
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