She Likes To Read

The Bright Years is a debut novel by Sarah Damoff.

The book follows 3 perspectives of one family over many decades: Lillian, the mother, Ryan, the father, and Jet, their daughter.

Lillian Wright and Ryan Brighton meet in a library by chance and go on a date at a diner that lasts throughout the day and night. They instantly fall for one another. Their relationship moves fairly quickly and before long, they’re married and have a daughter they name Georgette— Jet for short.

At first glance, their romance is like a fairy tale. Ryan is charming and kind. They open up an art gallery together; it’s always been Ryan’s dream. Lillian couldn’t be happier and more in love.

But there are things Lillian and Ryan have kept secret from one another: Lillian has another child she previously gave up for adoption, and Ryan has a drinking problem. When Lillian finally tells Ryan her secret, he shuts down. Lillian had been hesitant to even have a child with him, so him learning she’d already had one angered him. The next night, he decides to reveal his secret by bringing home a six-pack and downing it like water in front of her.

Weeks go by, and tension between them builds up. Ryan isn’t coming home from work some nights due to being too drunk to drive. They’re not sleeping in the same bed anymore. Ryan is incredibly irritable and short with Lillian, saying things like “I don’t need that look.”, “I don’t need you to say anything.”, and “Would you leave it alone? It’s not hurting anyone.”

It all comes to a head when Ryan and Lillian get into an argument over renewing their lease. Ryan is drunk and suddenly throws an empty beer bottle at Lillian. She manages to duck and the bottle shatters behind her.

Ryan threw a beer bottle.

Ryan threw a beer bottle.

At me.

My face.

My Ryan.

Who paints azaleas.

Who sings lullabies to his daughter at three in the morning.

Who once rescued an injured barn swallow on Calhoun Street and nursed it back to health.

I really like this scene. It marks a very harsh and final end to Lillian and Ryan’s fairytale-like love story. Addiction issues can only be ignored for so long before things crumble.

It also does a good job of showing the complicated emotions and confusion that occurs when trying to process an event like this. You have all these positive emotions and associations with this person who just tried to hurt you. It’s hard to fully process. Do you leave? Well, maybe it won’t happen again. They’ve never acted like this before.

Ryan leaves after this incident— he comes from an abusive, broken home and doesn’t want his own family to end up like that. But Ryan and Lillian don’t divorce. For 14 years, Ryan is in and out of Lillian and Jet’s lives.

It’s so frustrating to see Ryan’s many attempts and failures to stave off alcohol. He desperately wants to quit so he can be with Lillian again. For years, he can only go a day or two at a time with no alcohol.

It’s frustrating that Lillian won’t let Ryan go. Knowing that she won’t leave him makes you want Ryan to be able to quit that much more. Many of her reasons for staying boil down to pity and longing for the Ryan she thought she knew. She has a hard time seeing Ryan for who he is currently and what he’s doing to their family. She sees Ryan as someone struggling through an addiction— and he is.

But, at what point do you leave an addict? When is it enough? How many chances do you give someone to change?

I wonder who does his marketing.(…) Why he could commit to the work and art of this place but not the work and art of us. How alcohol decides what to destroy and what to leave alone.

Every time she had a thought similar to this, I would hope that it would be the one that would finally make her see this relationship isn’t something that’s good for her or Jet; that it was time to move on.

It’s infuriating that Jet is so often an afterthought to Ryan.

“It’s ten thirty. On New Year’s Eve. You’re eighteen years old. Don’t you—”

“Nineteen.”

“What?”

“I’m nineteen. Like, six months now.”(…)

“I knew you turned nineteen. I just…” He pushes away the air in front of him like he can’t be bothered with birthdays or oxygen or finishing sentences.

“You could have been there on my birthday. That might have helped you remember.” The only birthday he’s ever celebrated with me was my fifteenth, with the puppy chow and proposal.

That last sentence really hits hard and puts into perspective just how little involvement Ryan has had in Jet’s life up to this point. The only time he ever celebrated a birthday with her was to propose a second time to Lillian. That wasn’t even really a celebration of her birthday either; the primary focus was on setting up the proposal surprise.

It’s awful and, to no surprise, Jet doesn’t like being around her father. When Lillian suddenly dies from a heart attack, Jet can’t help but wish it were her dad instead. He relapses despite being the only parent Jet has left. Ryan also can’t take care of himself, let alone Jet. So, Jet ends up moving in with her grandmother— Ryan’s mother.

Jet doesn’t have parents, but she does still have parental figures in her life. She’s very close with her best friend Kendi’s family. Kendi’s father died while his mother was still pregnant with him, so he never got the chance to even know his dad.

There’s an interesting comparison made between the two:

All Kendi has of his dad are photos and stories and imaginings. I see his face when Jet talks about her dad showing up late or “after too many grown-up drinks.” I’m sure Kendi wishes his dad were here, even if only to show up drunk. Some primal place in us believes that having parents at their worst is better than not having them.

This raises the morbid question of: Would Jet have been better off if her father wasn’t here?

Kendi’s mom is engaged to another man, Michael, who she and Kendi love very much. He’s an incredibly positive influence on Kendi and Jet. He supports Kendi’s interests by taking him to the aviation museum every week. He’s a doctor too, so he’s a role model for Jet’s future dreams and answers any questions she has about being a doctor.

I can’t help but wonder if this is what Jet and Lillian’s lives might have looked like if either Ryan had died or Lillian had been able to move on. Jet would only have the stories and imaginings of her father instead of the stress of seeing him drink. Lillian could even have kept the old Ryan she desperately wanted back alive in a way.

I don’t think you can ever definitively answer if Jet would have been better off or not. Maybe she would have. Maybe not. It’s impossible to know.

There’s a major theme of dreams throughout the book.

On Ryan and Lillian’s first date, the discussion of dreams comes up. Ryan has a few: become an artist— something he’s already succeeded at, and open an art gallery— which he eventually does. Ryan asks Lillian what her dreams are, and she can’t think of anything, so she tells him a joke instead.

Lillian has a history of losing herself to the men she’s with. Their dreams overshadow and become hers.

The envy of all who knew us, I hitched myself to his glittering dreams.

After a few months, my guilty conscience presents as his dream come true: I’m ready, or so I say. Too slow for Ryan and too fast for me.

Kendi and Jet have dreams of their own as well. Kendi wants to be a pilot, and Jet, a doctor. Kendi achieves his goal and gets his pilot’s license. Jet, however, has a period of time where she gives up on everything. She’s incredibly depressed. Over the span of 4-5 years, she slowly finds herself again with the support of her grandmother, Kendi, and Kendi’s mom.

I’m going to apply to school to become a nurse-midwife. Not a doctor exactly, but exactly what my doctor-heart craves.

She accomplishes her dream and becomes exactly that. I think this is ultimately what separates Jet from her father and mother. Ryan got lost in his grief and fear of becoming who his father was, and it destroyed both his health and his relationships. Lillian was too focused on everyone else around her to focus on and form any dreams of her own.

Jet found a balance. Yes, grief is something everyone experiences at some point. But you can’t get lost in regrets of what could have been; you can’t get lost in the fear of something or becoming someone. And you can’t lose yourself in other people.

Ryan maintains sobriety for 5 years for his granddaughter, Apricity. Holding Jet and Kendi’s daughter makes him realize that he only ever did that a handful of times with Jet. He was never there. Never a part of her life like he should have been. It finally clicks. Five years is the longest period of time he’s ever gone without alcohol, and it seems like this is the time he will succeed for good. And despite all the issues I have with him, I still wanted him to succeed here. I wanted Jet to be able to start over with her dad. I wanted Apricity to have her grandfather in her life. I saw the Ryan that Lillian fell in love with come back.

I wanted it to work. Which is why, when he got ill and died, I cried like a little baby.

The story ends on a positive note, though. Kendi and Jet’s marriage seems like the one we initially thought Ryan and Lillian might have. It’s a relief to know that Apricity won’t have to go through what Jet did with her father and Ryan with his.

I like the name Apricity for what it represents. The word apricity means “the warmth of the sun in winter”. She marks the beginning of a permanent positive change in the family’s trajectory— bright years.

The Bright Years is a fantastic novel, a wonderful debut, and I highly recommend reading it. The characters feel complex, relatable, and real, and the story is simultaneously heartbreaking, heartwarming, and hopeful.