Sarah Damoff- The Burning Side (Podcast)

Sarah Damoff joins Book Gang to discuss The Burning Side, a powerful family saga of marriage, memory, and the secrets that bind generations.

This week’s Book Gang conversation welcomes back acclaimed author Sarah Damoff, whose new novel, The Burning Side, delivers a gripping book club premise: a multigenerational family forced to rebuild after tragedy, now under one roof.

Opening with a house fire, readers witness the unraveling of the tangled lives of April and Leo, who must seek shelter with April’s parents—only to discover old wounds and new truths simmering beneath the surface of Deb and Billy’s life as they navigate carrying a heavy secret of their own.

Damoff draws on her experience as a social worker to craft heart-wrenching, compassionate scenes of family struggle, childhood trauma, and the hard choices that shape marriage and parenthood.

In this inviting and deeply immersive conversation, we discuss:

Breaking through without a platform: Sarah shares the behind-the-scenes story of launching The Bright Years—without a major social media following, publishing pedigree, or built-in audience—and how her debut still became a national bestseller and Goodreads Choice finalist. We discuss what truly drives word-of-mouth success, the role of authentic storytelling, and what her experience reveals about connecting with readers in today’s book world.

What happens after “happily ever after?”: Sarah explores the overlooked middle and later years of marriage—when routines settle, old dreams fade, and couples like Leo and April or Deb and Billy face new tensions and vulnerable reckonings. We discuss how these shifting roles and quiet heroics shape both relationships at the novel’s heart.

Writing memory and identity in decline: We talk with Sarah about the emotionally charged process of bringing Billy’s early-onset dementia to life on the page. She shares how she honored both the vibrant man Billy was and the person he’s becoming, capturing the heartbreak of losing not just memories, but layers of identity.

BONUS WEEKLY BOOK LIST: Books About Fires

Discover 19 must-read books about fires where fire ignites drama, mystery, and transformation—perfect picks for book clubs and fans of immersive stories. Patrons receive a printable checklist and a bonus spoiler chat with Sarah Damoff, streaming today.

The Burning Side Book Summary

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline comes a boldly original reimagining of the astonishing true story of two sisters in nineteenth-century North Carolina — Kline’s own distant relatives — who married world-famous conjoined twins from Siam.

From the author of The Bright Years, the story of April and Leo, a couple on the brink of collapse. When their house goes up in flames, family secrets and thorny histories emerge as they are forced to decide what is worth salvaging.

When April and Leo’s house burns in the middle of the night, they escape with their two young children and the quiet knowledge that the fire is not the only thing threatening their family. They retreat to April’s childhood home in Dallas, where her spirited parents and siblings provide both comfort and complication.

As the family reckons with the aftermath—grief, guilt, logistics, and memories scorched and intact—the fire exposes the cracks already forming in April and Leo’s marriage. The novel unfolds in alternating perspectives: from April, who feels the crushing weight of motherhood, marriage, and self-blame; from Leo, a high school history teacher shaped by a lonely, fractured childhood; from Deb, April’s generous and no-nonsense mother who has to contend with her husband’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis; and from flashbacks that trace April and Leo’s relationship from its earliest days of connection to the devastating decisions that led them here.

A family saga suffused with humor, longing, and heartbreak, The Burning Side is about what we inherit and what we choose, about forgiveness and the ache of being known. It is, above all, about the meaning of home and the costs of long love.

Meet Sarah Damoff

Sarah Damoff is the author of the debut novel, The Bright Years, published by Simon & Schuster in 2025—a national bestseller and Goodreads Choice Awards finalist, now translated into fourteen languages. Her writing has appeared in Oprah Daily, Porter House Review, Ruminate Magazine, and Open Global Rights. She holds a Child Protection Certification from Harvard University and lives with her family in Dallas, Texas, where she has worked as a social worker. The Burning Side arrives in stores on May 19th.

Inside the Creation of The Burning Side with Sarah Damoff

Listen to the Book Gang Podcast:

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Mentioned in this episode:

NEW: Download the 2026 Summer Reading Guide (57-Pages of Bookish Fun With 70 Tried-and-True Recommendations)

NEW BOOK LIST: 19 Books About Fires

2026 MomAdvice Book Club Books (All 12 Selections)

Janelle Brown Interview (What Kind of Paradise)

Join the May Book Club 4/30 at 8 PM ET (What Kind of Paradise)

Sarah Damoff – The Bright Years Podcast Interview

The Burning Side by Sarah Damoff

The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff

The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

The Dallas Museum of Art Arts & Letters Program

Maggie O’Farrell

Valley of Forgetting by Jennie Erin Smith

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Previous Sarah Damoff Interview: The Bright Years

Sarah Damoff- The Bright Years (Podcast Interview)

Sarah Damoff shares how The Bright Years evolved from an epistolary draft into a powerful multi-POV family saga exploring addiction across generations.

Every so often, a debut novel arrives so confident and assured it’s hard to believe it’s the author’s first. Sarah Damoff’s The Bright Years is one of those rare books. Deeply informed by her work as a social worker, Sarah offers readers an empathetic and profoundly immersive exploration of addiction and its reverberations across generations. Deftly weaving their family’s personal history with political and cultural moments creates a layered portrait of a family navigating love and loss through the generations.

In this intimate and insightful conversation, Sarah and I discuss:

Her savvy and scrappy journey to landing a book deal with Simon & Schuster
How The Bright Years began as an epistolary novel and evolved into a multi-POV saga
The challenge of writing addiction and redemption with compassion
How setting the story across decades helped her explore shifting perspectives and memory

Best Addiction Fiction Books to Read Now

BONUS BOOK LIST: I’ve curated a list of the best 19 addiction fiction books—featuring buzzworthy new releases and must-read backlist gems. Browse while you listen!

The Bright Years Book Summary

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.

Sarah Damoff- Author of The Bright Years

Meet Sarah Damoff

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.