Dreamland by Sam Quinones - a book about the opiate epidemic

Sam Quinones’ book Dreamland is subtitled: “the true tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic.”  The preface focuses on Portsmouth, Ohio, and in recounting many residents’ idyllic memories of swimming pools and graduations, sustains unbelievable tension in the setup of what will inevitably be a tragic story.

The memories are beautifully evoked in descriptions of the swimming pool, the Dreamland of the title:

“In fact, the cycle of life in Portsmouth was repeated over and over at Dreamland.  A toddler spent her first years at the shallow end watched by her parents, particularly her mother, who sat on a towel on the concrete near the water with other young moms.  When the child left elementary school, she migrated out to the middle section of Dreamland as her parents retreated to the grass.  By high school, she was hanging out on the grass around the pool’s ten-foot deep end, near the high dive and the head lifeguard’s chair, and her parents were far away.  When she married and had children, she returned to the shallow end of Dreamland to watch over her own children, and the whole thing began again.” (Quinones 2)

As one generation gives way to another, Dreamland is there to nurture kinship and community.

Another passage suggests the town’s vibrancy:

“Through these years, Portsmouth also supported two bowling alleys, a JCPenney, a Sears, and a Montgomery Ward with an escalator, and locally owned Marting’s Department Store, with a photo studio where graduating seniors had their portraits taken.  Chillicothe Street bustled.  Big U.S.-made sedans and station wagons lined the street.  People cashed their checks at the Kresge’s on Saturdays, and the owners of Morgan Brothers Jewelry, Herrmann’s Meats, Counts’ Bakery, and Atlas Fashion earned a middle class living.  Kids took the bus downtown to the movie theater or for cherry Cokes at Smith’s Drugstore and stayed out late trick-or-treating on Halloween.  On Friday and Saturday nights, teenagers cruised Chillicothe Street, from Staker’s Drugs down to Smith’s, then turned around and did it again.” (3)

The particularity of these places feels universal to the reader.  Other than JCPenney or Sears, I’ve never been to any of these places, but the names sparkle with the collective memory of a vibrant, lived-in place.

And then in the second to last paragraph, Quinones breaks all the tension he’s built up:

“Two Portsmouths exist today.  One is a town of abandoned buildings at the edge of the Ohio River.  The other resides in the memories of thousands in the town’s diaspora who grew up during its better years and return to the actual Portsmouth rarely, if at all.” (4)

One is a dead town.  The other is the painful memory that there once was a town.  The two actually equal zero.