The Bright Years, Sarah Damoff (Review by Lara Ferguson)
Rating: 4.0/5 Stars
The Bright Years is a story of love, secrets, family, and of course, heartbreak. Ryan and Lillian fall in love, combining their lives and their names, building a life. They open the art gallery that Ryan has always dreamed of, allowing him to both create art and provide a place for others to exhibit their works. They conceive a child and call her Georgette. Life is grand, but living inside each of them is a secret.
Lillian is living with the knowledge that Georgette is not her first child, a fact that she believes will destroy her marriage, and deep inside Ryan lives a shrouded alcoholic, waiting to be released. Ryan, who has always refused to drink alcohol, begins drinking and leaves the family to protect them leaving Georgette to grow up watching her parents’ marriage cycle. Then comes unexpected tragedy and Georgette flees from her family, determined to create distance from her past so that she does not fall prey to the same mistakes. When Lillian’s first child, a son, appears, looking for his mother and the story of his biological family, Georgette is compelled to reexamine her origin and consider the consequences of running away from love.
Utilizing the unique perspective of each character, Sarah Damoff, skillfully paints the story from all three views, each with their own color and emphasis. Lillian, as she struggles with her love for Ryan and her need to protect Georgette, Ryan, as he succumbs to his alcoholism and impacts his family, and Georgette as she must weather the consequences of her parents’ decisions. This honest and often painful look at the effects that alcohol abuse has on families, often for generations, is filled with love and frustration, pain and redemption.
Damoff’s captivating prose pulls the reader into the story, launching a rollercoaster of emotions, requiring deep consideration of the fact that all sides have a story and there are never easy answers, especially when love and family are involved.