The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff

The Legacy of Alcoholism

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Since I am a sucker for books about addiction and about how women handle themselves in abusive relationships, I was pretty sure this book would interest me. The opening scene is set in 1958 and finds a frightened little boy under the kitchen table as he listens to his drunken father fight with his mother in their bedroom. Ultimately, he hears a crash. Before long, his mom – with her red-streaked face – is in the kitchen, taking him by the hand and leading him away from the house.

From there we get a novel told in three parts. The first part introduces Lillian Wright, who ultimately falls in love with Ryan Brighton in 1979. She learns early on that Ryan is a teetotaler because his father, Barton, drank too much, which made his hands “loose.” Ryan and his mother left the father when he was a child. Clearly, we have met Ryan before, when he was a child under the kitchen table. And of course, he has every intention to be different from his father!

This section takes us through the marriage of Lillian and Ryan when they combine their names creatively as “Bright.” And it takes us through the birth of their daughter in 1986. She is Georgette, affectionately known as Jet. Early on – it’s page 60 – it even takes us to that night a year after Jet’s birth that a drunken Ryan threw a beer bottle at Lillian over a minor disagreement. She hadn’t known he was angry nor that he was drunk!

So much for teetotaling and good intentions.

As Ryan moves away from Lillian and Jet to be sure he does not harm them, they turn to his mother, Elise, for help. And they also make new friends with Shauna, and her son Kendall/Kendi, who are neighbors. All three become major characters – and helpmates – for the Bright girls as they face a couple of major challenges through the years.

The second section of the book is told from Jet’s point of view, starting in 2001, on her fifteenth birthday. Her father has been an intermittent presence through her life as he continued to struggle with alcoholism. Through it all, though, her mother loved him. Similarly, we learn through snippets in the book that Elise let Barton back into her life from time to time because she, too, still loved him.

The reader is left to consider the sway of alcoholism across generations. And also to consider those who love the alcoholics.

And then to give us an eye witness report on what it’s like to be the alcoholic, the third section of the book is told from Ryan’s point of view. It opens with Jet’s wedding in 2012 and covers the first handful or so of years of her marriage.

All is looking happy! But what about the sway of alcoholism across generations? Perhaps there will be a sequel to let us know.

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 Thanks to Hannah Bishop, Senior Publicist at Simon & Schuster for an advance review copy of this book. One can pre-order it now. The book will be released April 22, 2025

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Click here to learn more about The Bright Years on Amazon.

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If you like my writing, did you know I have four books in print? They are all available on my Etsy shop. My newest book, Love, Loss, and Moving On, is also available on Amazon. Please have a look and tell a friend!