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About this item
Highlights
- One family.
- About the Author: Sarah Damoff lives in Texas with her husband and children, where she is a social worker.
- 288 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Family Life
Description
About the Book
"One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they're unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this big-hearted family saga perfect for readers of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo. Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn't told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn't told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall. When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian's son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family's history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them-or herself-while there's still time. Told from three intimate points of view, The Bright Years is a tender, true-to-life novel that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love"--Book Synopsis
One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they're unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this big-hearted family saga perfect for readers of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo. "A heartbreaker and heart-mender at once." --Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of An American Marriage Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn't told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn't told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall. When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian's son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family's history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them--or herself--while there's still time. Told from three intimate points of view, The Bright Years is a tender, true-to-life novel that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love.Review Quotes
"To attempt to tell a convincing love story at this late stage in the history of the novel is to set the bar ambitiously high, and yet Sarah Damoff somehow pulls it off twice in a single book, penning two thoroughly persuasive, interrelated relationship histories, each with appealing texture and depth...The Bright Years builds symphonically, polyphonically, reaching emotional crescendos and gliding into perfectly calibrated decrescendos that mimic the rhythms of real life."--Lit Hub "In Damoff's heartfelt debut, which spans four generations, the impact of addiction is threaded tightly into a family's story. The novel examines the joys and sorrows of Lillian Bright and addresses a timeless theme: how alcohol decides what to destroy and what to leave alone."--People "The Bright Years is more than just a good novel. It is so masterfully constructed and so sensitively, satisfyingly written that one finds it hard to believe it is a first novel. It contains all the realism of everyday life for millions of everyday people: passionate romance, betrayal, abandonment, suvival and overcoming the odds. It's a family saga filled with heart and hope, pain and joy, love and grief."--Dallas Morning News "Outstanding...through Damoff's beautiful, at times almost poetic narrative, we see hope through the darkness, and how love--and forgiveness--can make us whole."--BookReporter "Tender and heartbreaking, but ultimately hopeful...will make the reader feel like they are actually living through it alongside the characters."--Booklist (starred review) "Social worker Damoff's heartfelt debut focuses on the impact of alcohol addiction on a family over four generations...This family drama rings true."--Publishers Weekly "This novel sparkles in its sentences, its texture, its big heart--THE BRIGHT YEARS is a vivid, forthright, and gorgeously written story of love in its many iterations." --CLAIRE LOMBARDO, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had and Same as it Ever Was "THE BRIGHT YEARS is a moving portrait of inheritance and loss. A heart-breaker and heart-mender at once, this is a story that forces us to confront our vulnerabilities and secrets in order to find our strength and truth. A stunning debut!"--TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage "To attempt to tell a convincing love story at this late stage in the history of the novel is to set the bar ambitiously high, and yet Sarah Damoff somehow pulls it off twice in a single book, penning two thoroughly persuasive, interrelated relationship histories, each with appealing texture and depth, one believable because of the pain it captures, the other a balm in the hope it implies. THE BRIGHT YEARS builds symphonically, polyphonically, reaching emotional crescendos and gliding into perfectly calibrated decrescendos that mimic the rhythms of real life. In its nuanced understanding of the psyche and its unsparing realism about human limitations even in the face of our desperate attempts to overcome them, this book, when it opens its sails to gale-force winds of feeling, leads one to shed one's sophistication and openly root for love, to cheer for it, even shed a tear for it, as Damoff sticks the landing and at long last it comes."--MATTHEW THOMAS, New York Times-bestselling author of We Are Not Ourselves "In THE BRIGHT YEARS, Sarah Damoff paints a loving portrait of a Texas family shadowed by the power of addiction. The journeys of Lillian, Jet and Ryan Bright are in all ways tender, tragic and triumphant and left me rooting for each character until the very end. A beautiful debut."--AMANDA CHURCHILL, author of The Turtle House "Like all great books, THE BRIGHT YEARS will leave you with deep feelings of compassion and insight for the inevitable love and suffering we must all go through in order to fully live."--SIMON VAN BOOY, bestselling author of Sipsworth "This manner of storytelling felt so poignant, coming full circle at the end and tugging at your heart...I recommend it to fans of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo."--The Literary Lifestyle
About the Author
Sarah Damoff lives in Texas with her husband and children, where she is a social worker. Her work has appeared in Porter House Review, Ruminate Magazine, and Open Global Rights, among other publications. The Bright Years is her debut novel. Visit Sarah at SarahDamoff.com.Dimensions (Overall): 9.1 Inches (H) x 6.1 Inches (W) x 1.4 Inches (D)
Weight: .95 Pounds
Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up
Sub-Genre: Family Life
Genre: Fiction + Literature Genres
Number of Pages: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Theme: Marriage & Divorce
Format: Hardcover
Author: Sarah Damoff
Language: English
Street Date: April 22, 2025
TCIN: 92388055
UPC: 9781668061442
Item Number (DPCI): 247-36-0476
Origin: Made in the USA or Imported
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Estimated ship dimensions: 1.4 inches length x 6.1 inches width x 9.1 inches height
Estimated ship weight: 0.95 pounds
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5.0 out of 5 stars with 1 reviews
100% would recommend
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I loved it
5 out of 5 stars
Thumbs up graphic, would recommend
B Rex - 8 days ago
I really enjoyed this book. From the first two chapters, I could already tell I was reading a book that I would love. And that early impression was spot on. One thing I really liked about this book is the way it was told from three different perspectives, and also told chronologically, but it didn't jump from perspective to perspective throughout. The entire first half of the book was told from Lillian's perspective (the wife/mother), then the next 35% is told from Georgette's perspective (the daughter), then the last 15% is told from Ryan's perspective (the husband/father). The fact that the author was able to do this while also telling the story chronologically was pretty unique. I don't usually see multi-perspective books told this way, but I thought it was a refreshing change. This book has a scene (very early on, so I don't consider this a spoiler) in which Ryan, who is an alcoholic, throws a glass bottle that shatters against the wall (while he is drunk). The is the first time I can recall ever reading a scene in a book that so perfectly mirrored a scene from my childhood (my father was an alcoholic and smashed plenty of bottles over the years). It was wild to read something that so accurately depicted my experience, and it instantly made me feel connected to Lillian and Georgette, who were naturally the ones that suffered from his alcoholism. Even though these characters aren't real, it made me feel less alone in the things I experienced. Because of this scene so early in the book, I expected to read a lot more about Ryan's addiction that mirrored what I saw in my father, but his addiction was not really addressed in detail very much from that point forward. While it was a plotline that carried on throughout the story, it was never delved deeply into, as I wish it had been. His alcoholism had such an impact on his wife, daughter, and mother - not to mention himself, that I wish we had been given more insight into his struggles, his attempts at recovery, etc. That said, this book covers approximately 40 years of this family's lives, so I understand why more time couldn't be given to that. I really loved Lillian as a character. I loved who she was, the decisions she made, her relationships with her daughter, mother-in-law, and best friend. I loved that as a reader, we got to see "Jet" (Georgette) grow from a baby to a woman with a family of her own. I love that even though Ryan often felt like a peripheral character, we got to see his whole story as well. And while Elise (Ryan's mother) was not a main character, she was so important to the story and she may have been my favorite character of all. This book brought me to tears multiple times (and it takes a lot to make me cry when reading). Despite its short length, there are a lot of topics that are tackled within its pages. This is the story of a family through their ups and downs and it felt so real to me, which is something that is so important to me in the books I read. My one wish for this book is that it had been longer. I would have liked to have had even more depth into their stories and to read about more of their experiences as a family. That's certainly not a complaint. It's amazing to me that the book packed such an emotional punch with its short length, and the fact that I want even more of it actually speaks to how good it really was.