Sam Quinones opens Dreamland with a description of the Olympic-size private swimming pool that gives the book its title, built in a working-class town on the Ohio River called Portsmouth in 1929. The pool was so central to the town’s identity that it was “the summer babysitter,” and messages to the sunbathers relaxing next to the pool were broadcast on the local radio station (1).

Though the pool never fully welcomed Black citizens, it was open to residents from all class backgrounds; as a result, “Dreamland took on an outsized importance to the town of Portsmouth” (2). For generations, Portsmouth residents grew up at Dreamland and then repeated the process with their own children. The activity at the pool was mirrored by the bustling nature of the town itself, which had at its height two bowling alleys, several department stores, and industrial activity in the form of shoe factories. In 1979 and 1980 the town was selected an All-American City. Quinones closes the Preface by noting that as the town declined, it was the memories of Dreamland that residents held most dear.

In the Introduction Quinones moves on to another part of Ohio and the diverging trajectories of two brothers from a middle-class family—Myles and Matt Schoonover—due to opiate addiction.