Damnation Spring

From the blurb and the cover design, I really thought this book would be a great match for me - a story about trees, structured to be told from multiple perspectives, following characters grappling with making money in the lumber industry vs environmental concerns. I adored The Overstory and I

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wanted this story to strike the same chord, but Damnation Spring just didn’t land with me.

Like some other reviewers, I struggled with the logging terminology and slang, the slow pace, the huge cast of characters that were difficult to keep straight, and the way the story developed. The author leaves a lot between the lines, which left me confused about what the characters did or did not know, as well as what I was supposed to be understanding.

Thanks to the publisher, Scribner, and LibraryThing for an advance copy of this book.

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One of the best books I've won from LibraryThing.

Mostly a "domestic" story about a husband, wife, and their son set in 1977/1978 in California in a small town where logging old growth Redwoods dominates their world. It doesn't take a crystal ball to predict that the herbicide sprays that keep roads

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open is going to play a part in the story, but the book is more than just an environmentalist finger wagging at the logging industry. In fact, the "longhairs" as the loggers call them, are all secondary characters here. Instead, there's a bit more of a nuanced take because the primary perspectives are of a town whose people owe their existence to the Redwood industry. Indigenous people are also given a voice, though theirs is more background.

Each chapter is from a particular perspective as identified by the character's name at the beginning of the chapter, and that actually works really well -- even the chapters for the little boy. I appreciate that the author didn't make these chapters sound more babyish, as authors are wont to do, but instead just made the observations more basic, the way a child might notice that the kettle keeps boiling but not why (and yet there are enough hints for an adult reader to pick up on the why). That style is very well crafted.

Overall, the writing is solid and makes for good reading. I was pulled into the story from the get-go. It did feel like the pace slowed or lagged during the second quarter, but where the plot slowed, the characters really build and create relationships with the reader. Lark steals the show in every scene he's in. I love his dialogue and wit! Good comic relief, rather like the king's fool because he provides reflection and wisdom for Rich.

All the characters have good depth and dynamics. They're realistic and relational and interesting.

When I first got the book, I thought it would hit the same audience as for The Overstory, but it's definitely more for fans of Barbara Kingsolver. This book is not identical to Kingsolver's, but it has similar themes of nature, domesticity, and birth/motherhood as well as style of a slower pace but depth of story.

A worthwhile read!

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I was given an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, the story is great. I really was drawn into the lives of the Gundersens and was cared about Rich, Colleen, and Chub. On the other hand, do you know what a

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"crummy" is? The language of loggers and logging is so unlike anything I am used to that I felt like I needed a dictionary along side the book to understand what was going on. At times it completely distracted me from the great story line.

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I knew this book would touch the heart of the tree-hugger in me, which it most definitely did, but it also touched the woman in me, the mother in me, my very humanity. This is a very impressive debut novel about the logging industry, corporate greed and the protesting against the poisoned sprays

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used to clear off brush. The characterization is excellent. I knew these people down to their very souls. There are moments of suspense, there are moments of joy and there are moments of great heart break. A true American epic. Colleen, Rich and their son, Chub, as well as their dog Scout, will stay in my heart for a long time to come.

Most highly recommended.

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With Damnation Spring, debut author Ash Davidson brings us another strong entry into the save-the-trees world of literary fiction (see The Overstory, Greenwood). It is the late 1970s, and third-generation logger in the Pacific Northwest, Rich Gundersen, and his young wife, Colleen, are trying to

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survive both the looming end of logging and the potential toxicity it has brought to their land and life. This is a beautifully written book, with short chapters rotating through Rich, Colleen, and their young son, Chub. At times Davidson gets a little bogged down in her form and language making the story drag, but she pulls it together as the plot finally coalesces in the last 100 pages. Definitely worth the little slog for readers who enjoy nature reads, family stories, and modern-historical fiction.

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Rich Gunderson comes from a long line of loggers. Most of them died young while doing a very dangerous job. Rich is now in his early 50s with both a young wife and a young boy. He knows his days are limited, so is exploring other options. He finds one when he purchases a very valuable plot of

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redwoods. He can harvest this, make a killing and retire. The setting is Northern California, in the late 70s. Threats from environmental groups and the National Park system, trying to save these lands will all be road blocks for Rich. Another sinister danger has also crept into the picture- the logging companies have been using herbicides to kill the undergrowth, something deemed safe is turning out to have deadly consequences.
This is a solid debut by an author who grew up in this part of the country. She tells the story, through alternating chapters headed by Rich, Colleen and Chub. This style is effective and despite it's length reads very quickly, as the suspense continues to mount. I like most of these characters, but Rich stands out as an iconic figure. One I won't soon forget.
I would also like to thank Scribner for giving me an advanced copy of this terrific novel.

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For me there are two parts to this novel, the first informs for almost 400 pages (an editor should have done a great deal of pruning here), and the second part hits intensely for the last fifty. If there are readers in search of an immersion program for learning about big timber logging skills in

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the remaining redwood groves of northern California, here are hundreds of pages detailing just that. I’ve read a number of logging novels, ever since Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion back in the 1960s, but this was the most detailed. One thing that I did learn, was the term “big pumpkins” to describe the colossal redwoods. I started to tire of the distance being maintained from the characters moving around in the story—until the ending won me over entirely.

The story starts to tighten around a talented logger, Rich Gundersen, and his midwife wife, Colleen, and their five-year old boy, Chub. She has had a number of miscarriages herself, and has witnessed many more, along with some horrible birth defects. It turns out the cheapest way to keep the logging roads clear was aerial spraying of some Agent Orange related chemicals by Rich’s employer the Sanderson Timber Company, the local government, and the feds. These chemicals seem to be a likely cause of the problems, but being the biggest employer in the area’s economy, made the lumber company a difficult foe. The anti-logging protesters (labeled long-haired hippie environmentalists) take many shots rhetorically and physically from the loggers feeling their livelihoods threatened. In the middle of all of this, Rich’s family discovers through private water tests, that their natural spring has become tainted, and the aerial spraying spreads far wider than just their spring and watershed.

Running all through the forest are other related stories. Rich was a very experienced and talented timber worker who had taken a wild chance at ending their long financial struggles by taking out a huge loan ($250,000) to buy some prime old growth timberland. Once his 24-7 timber parcel (with its namesake giant towering 370 feet tall) was harvested, their lives would improve greatly. But there were several puzzle pieces that had to be connected to allow his ship to come in. Sanderson, the lumber company that he worked for, first had to build logging roads to harvest the trees in the parcel adjacent to his lot. He also needed governmental approval to cut his timber, weather, and several other things. The timing of everything has to all fall into place before he defaults on his monstrous loan, but then things start to go wrong.

There are few subtleties in this story where the “sides” are clear cut. After there’s a discussion of the chemicals being sprayed over the people and their land at a large public meeting, Colleen is seen by many as a threat to the “community” because of her talk of birthing problems and poisons. Not long after the meeting, a shot rings out in the night and the Gundersen’s dog is dead in their front yard. “The front door stood ajar, cold air seeping in, porch light turning fog molten. Outside, Rich crouched on his hams, his hands on Scout’s splayed body.”

Davidson had laid out the details of big timber logging for too long—similar to how the loggers cut smaller trees and brush to make large cushions on which to drop the mighty redwoods, so as not to reduce valuable timber into tons of toothpicks. Once the book turned to the characters, it had all the force and speed of a huge redwood falling right your way, especially for Rich and his family.

The following lines stuck in my mind. The first isn’t original, yet, it fit perfectly to several things in the story. “Pleasure is first found in anticipation.” The second is a longer bit from Colleen about love, but it’s welded inside my mind.

“Every day, you got up and chose me. And every day, even when you were gone, working, I just felt this love from you, like there was a rope tied around your waist on one end and around mine on the other. Like wherever you went, your heart beat for me. You used to do that thing, you know, where you’d talk right here”—she touched the spot behind her ear—“until we fell asleep” Like you saved it all up. And then Chub came, and our life was so full. I never thought my life could feel that full.” She traced a circle on his palm. “I want to feel that again.”

The third is a short bit of advice to Colleen from her dad. “You only get one life, sweet pea. Live it happy.”

There are several other memorable and strange characters in the book, but allow me to mention officer Harvey, and Rich’s friend, Lark, who is monumental in the overall plot and also decorated the entrance to his muddy driveway with two “show toilets.” That just makes me wonder why more people don’t have “show toilets.”

I gave this book my highest rating, even after it gave me more of a lumbering instructional than I wanted, simply because the writing is always good and the last section is beautifully written and felt. I won’t describe the ending, as it almost feels like a reader should pay the price of admission (all those details of big timber logging) to appreciate all that comes to a head in the end. Granted, as a broken-hearted survivor I tend to emote more than “the average bear,” but the ending was beautifully stunning. Davidson shows well all that she absorbed living in Arcata, from logging, environmental politics, struggling to survive physically and economically, as well as how a community of very independent people live together. This is a powerful first novel that I’m very glad to have been exposed to.

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I thought I would really enjoy this book about a logging town torn apart with controversy of environmental impacts and keeping jobs during the 1970s. However, it was a very slow burn full of technical jargon. It also was very depressing and parts of the end felt unnecessarily dim.

Damnation Spring vividly brings to life a community in crisis, and a family in crisis, set in 1977 and the lumbering community of the Pacific Northwest. It is dangerous work, a hard life, living on the edge of poverty. But, the lumbermen are proud and independent.

Environmental activists are seeking

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to stop the logging of the old growth Redwoods. The removal of the trees and destruction of the understory has caused devastation–mudslides and ruined fishing streams that are the source of food for the indigenous peoples.

There is also a high incidence of birth defects and miscarriages among the worker’s wives, and worrisome nose bleeds.

When a native son returns as part of a scientific study to identify toxins in the water left by the lumber company’s use of Agent Orange types of herbicides, his presence sets off resentment, retaliation, and violence.

The novel tells the story through the Gunderson family. Rich is descended from generations of loggers. He is upright and hard working, and married to Colleen. They have one living child, Chub, and have endured eight miscarriages. Colleen is a volunteer midwife and has seen first hand babies born without brains, the miscarriages, the heartbreak. When her high school sweetheart Daniel returns to study the environmental impact of the herbicide the lumbering company uses to kill the undergrowth, old feelings are stirred up. And, Daniel stirs up the loggers against him, for he is seen as just one more person out to destroy their way of life.

I had some trouble getting into the story mostly because it was hard for me to identify with the loyal employees of the lumber company that was destroying the Redwood forest. The author’s portrayal of the characters did keep me reading, and there came a point where the story of a community’s struggle to survive caught me. I was caught by the pattern of birth defects. Rich takes a giant leap of faith, mortgaging his entire future. And he and Colleen must openly discuss the pain of her eight miscarriages.

The story became a page turner. Then, I felt it became melodramatic, with unexpected strokes of good fortune followed by one crisis after another.

I appreciate the insight into the lives of the loggers. I liked the conflict based on the changes caused by environmental awareness. I did feel the novel could have been tightened, and definitely I felt there was the ending could have been more focused.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

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It's hard weeding out mediocre books from the good and great ones; you can never tell 100% if a book is going to be worth your time from the first page or first chapter. With "Damnation Spring," I feel like I could tell that this would be one of the good ones after that first chapter.

This is

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portrait of a place done in vivid detail, which is just the thing that a book needs when I have no special interest in a particular setting; in this case, a logging community and the impact logging has on both the environment and people. The pacing was good, loaded with tension, and the characters were empathetic and fully realized. All around an incredible debut.

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This emotionally wrenching story is set in the late 1970s in northern California. Rich Gundersen, 53, his younger wife Colleen, 34, and one kindergarten-aged son they call Chub live in Damnation Grove, the site of ancient redwoods being harvested for lumber by Rich’s employer, Sanderson Timber

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Company.

The company has used herbicides for decades to keep the brush down in the land surrounding the redwoods, making it faster and cheaper to log. But mudslides over the clearcut areas are increasing in frequency and danger; the salmon are dying off in the creeks; animals are marked by deformities; and worst of all, women have been suffering a series of miscarriages and births of deformed babies. But the residents are reluctant - resistant even - to blame the herbicides, which are deemed necessary for them to make their livings.

Rich checks in regularly on Cornelius Larkin, called Lark, who was Rich’s father’s best friend. Lark had sawed the branch that clubbed Rich’s father dead after he had just turned thirty. It was, Rich said, no one’s fault but the wind’s, but still Lark carried guilt for it, and tried to be for Rich the father Rich no longer had. Lark suffers in other ways: in a logging accident that didn’t seem like such an “accident,” he had sustained breaks in his back, neck, and both hips. Lark was sure someone had severed the rope’s steel core enough to allow him to climb forty feet before it snapped. Prior to the incident he had committed the “crime” of “talking about not cutting faster than it could grow back - sustained yield before there was a name for it.” His boss Virgil Sanderson didn’t take to it kindly, calling him a communist. And then Lark’s injury happened.

Now Sanderson Timber is run by Merle Sanderson, who, like others in the area, is doing a job handed down through the generations.

Rich dreamed of the day “he’d never have to work another day for Merle Sanderson, as he had for Virgil Sanderson before him, as Rich’s father had worked for George and his granddad for Victor, all the way back for as long as men had felled redwoods.”

But he loves the redwoods, and in particular has always wanted to own some unclaimed acres of them called the 24-7 Ridge, after the redwood that dominates it. The 24-7 got its name when it was twenty-four feet, seven inches in diameter, but now it is 28-5, and three hundred seventy feet high. Rich has circled that tree every morning for the last thirty-five years, trying to figure out a way to buy that area. When the opportunity finally comes, he jumps on it, without telling Colleen; he knew she would be upset over depleting their savings and incurring more debt.

That summer in 1977, when the story begins, Rich and Colleen had barely interacted for six months. Colleen had lost another baby, miscarrying at five months. She had lost eight babies - all except for Chub, but this one made it so far along, and she was devastated. Rich was afraid of making her go through that again, so he avoided her. She blamed herself for doing something wrong that must have caused all the miscarriages.

Rich wouldn't even talk to her about it, but her old boyfriend would. Daniel Bywater, a member of the Yurok tribe and now studying water quality, had come back to the area to test for contaminant levels.

Daniel finds out that the herbicides Sanderson sprays contain the same ingredients as Agent Orange, and they’re contaminated with TCDD and Dioxin - toxic not just for plants, but for animals and people. Daniel told Colleen, “They started spraying them in the fifties, all this time they’ve been bioaccumulating.” “Building up in the fish, in the deer, you eat the deer. . . . It runs off into the water. Whatever they spray ends up right there in your coffee mug. . . . It’s nasty stuff. We’re talking birth defects, cancers.”

Loggers and their families were supposed to evince loyalty to Sanderson, and shun the hippies who came from Arcata to protest logging, as well as people like Daniel, who, as they saw it, was one of those Native Americans just trying to stir up trouble. But Colleen, hurting so much from her losses, gave Daniel information not only about her own miscarriages but about the frequent cases of abnormalities in babies born in the area over the last six years that she saw in her work as a midwife. She also, at Daniel’s request, secretly collected and labeled their water in jars and gave them to Daniel to analyze.

Rich was upset when he found out, but Colleen countered: “What if all the babies she’d lost, what if it wasn’t anything she’d done wrong?" Rich, in perhaps the most poignant passage in the book, responded: “That stuff is approved by the government. Why would they approve something if it wasn’t safe?”

Chapters narrated by Rich, Colleen, and Chub present the differing points of views and nature of the conflicts roiling the area. In this way, we also get to know the family of Colleen’s younger sister Enid, married to another logger, Eugene. Eugene is as self-serving and amoral as Merle, and his actions threaten the lives and livelihoods of everyone in the grove.

Tensions come to a head as the novel draws to a close, and readers sense tragedy is on the horizon. But the possibility for it comes from so many directions, it’s hard to predict which will be the one to break their hearts, and yours, as the story ends.

Evaluation: Davidson brings the logging industry, its workers, and idiosyncratic customs to life so thoroughly I felt as if I were watching a movie rather than reading a book. The author helps you see everything as if you were there. You also come to grasp both the appeal of a close-knit community that all works together, and the horror of it when you dare to break the rules. This is an outstanding book, but one that will gut you in the end.

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First, read this:
"Ask any of these guys. You won’t find a guy that loves the woods more than a logger. You scratch a logger, you better believe you’ll find an ‘enviro-mentalist’ underneath. But the difference between us and these people is we live here. We hunt. We fish. We camp out.

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They’ll go back where they came from, but we’ll wake up right here tomorrow. This is home. Timber puts food on our tables, clothes on our kids’ backs. You know, a redwood tree is a hard thing to kill. You cut it down, it sends up a shoot. Even fire doesn’t kill it. Those big pumpkins up in the grove, they’re old. Ready to keel over and rot. You might as well set a pile of money on fire and make us watch."
–and–
“The real timber’s gone,” Lark said. “What’s left, ten percent, including the parks? Two thousand years to grow a forest, a hundred years to fall it. No plague like man.”
There isn't a lot to argue with in this novel. The positions are made clear as glass, the townsfolk of the story are innocent of any wrongdoing except not wanting change and the corporate interests are extracting value from the land, the timber, and the people with no slightest regard for the costs.

This ain't rocket science. You know whose side you're on from the jump.

What price innocence...the townies aren't idiots, it's clear that their corporate masters pay them pittances to do dangerous jobs. They love those jobs, they love the life it affords them. So why the hell should they bitch if someone else lives fancier than they do? Ain't like they'd want to live like those folks do, even if they had all the money those folks have. So keep the trees fallin' and the pennies rollin' in.

The personal costs? Well, omelets ain't ever come out of whole eggs, have they. That's the way life is. Except...when you step in front of a woman who wants kids, you'd better be *well*armored*indeed*. Colleen wants babies. She's miscarried eight times! Her sister's had healthy ones, and with a man you'd have to be kind to describe as "grossly unfit." It clearly ain't her body....

And here's my problem: The pace of the novel is, to put it politely, magisterial. The language is limpidly clear, if a bit less than inspiringly lyrical. But the gender politics are awful. The conflict between husband and wife over her screaming NEED to mother a brood, her apostasy to community values (and with a man she has a history with! that gets what feels to me like a pretty insignificant amount of play) because her uterus hasn't popped out healthy babies, squicked me out. I hate it when women in stories play the Mother Card and get away with amazingly nasty shit (see my outraged shout about Gone Girl), unlike Colleen. But basically I don't care about Motherhood. It isn't necessary for you to reproduce yourselves, straight people, the planet's already working itself into a fever to get rid of us. So using it, as Author Davidson does here, as a reason for Colleen to do something that (objectively) is good but will end the way of life these people want to live, shouldn't be framed as "she did it for her babies to be born."

Listen, I don't think what mega-corporations do to the world is laudable, and they do it for the vilest, most selfish reasons. I'm right there with you on the "make it stop" front. But don't play "Sacred Motherhood" on your cards or you'll lose any serious argument for them to be held accountable. NOT being a mother is the responsible choice for all women. The only people who are carryin' on about having more babies are the white supremacists, and we need a lot fewer of them stat.

On balance, three stars was what I could muster, and I felt pretty questionable about that last half-star. The book's set in 1977. We already knew the cost of overpopulation then. The "Zero Population Growth" movement was organized in 1968. It's still a damned good idea. But Sacred Motherhood is used as a primary motivator to positive action in this story, and that sits wrong with me.

The ending wasn't particularly satisfying, after all we've been through; but there not being anything dramatically wrong with the structure or the writing (apart from there being too much of it) I couldn't bring myself to downgrade it. But it wasn't an easy decision. Three...that is, on Amazon's debased scale, a bad rating. I think it's a perfectly fine rating, a perfectly fine read got a perfectly fine rating, and I didn't beat it up beyond its just deserts. That will have to do.

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Loved this book. Environmental issues and romance. Good children. Interesting issues

Logging in the Pacific Northwest - coastal California in 1977. The issues involved, toxic defoliants, miscarriage, protests, and the demise of old growth forests all play into a story of relationships, a young wife to an older husband, a responsible sister to one who is not, an honorable man to his

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son and the old man who has filled the role of father in his life.

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This was a slow start, but by the end I was so incredibly engrossed in the life of this small logging community. I loved the truth and life the author breathed into the relationships in this book - marriage, family, friends, all felt so real. I held my breath through the last several chapters, and

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when I came to the end I wasn't ready. I will be living with these characters in my head for some time. Definitely recommended.

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The only thing I didn't really like in this book about a logging community in California during the 1970s was the confusing industry terminology that was used. Otherwise, it was an involving, honest and ultimately heart-wrenching story that I would definitely recommend.

Set in the 1970's, Rich is a tree topper, his livelihood dependent on the local logging company. His wife Colleen is raising their young son and helping the community by serving as a midwife. Rich is given the opportunity to purchase a track of land containing one of the largest redwoods in the

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area. When environmentalists flood into town, his investment and livelihood is threatened. Simultaneously, the logging companies have been spraying the weeds and brush with chemicals. Deformed babies, miscarriages, and problem with the local wildlife begin to emerge.

This book was extremely slow moving. While minor and mundane tasks were highlighted in excruciating details, the environmental concerns and actual logging seemed to be rushed and briefly covered. The characters were extremely detailed and realistic, which was probably the best part of the book. Unfortunately, this is not one I would re-read or recommend.

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Set in the 1970s in a logging community against the backdrop of environmental awareness, this novel not only taught me something about that livelihood and the changes headed its way, but also introduced me to multilayered characters. Family, friends, relationships. Betrayal, hopes, dreams. Above

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all, endurance in the face of hardship. I was hooked from the first page until the last.

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Damnation Spring is a well-written novel centering around a logging community and a family whose entire existence depends on the logging industry. When environmental issues threaten to put an end to the industry in their area, it creates much strife within the community and within the families

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involved.

The story centers around the Gunderson family. Rich has grown up in a logging family and depends completely on the land. His wife, Colleen is a midwife and mother to their son Chub. Colleen has had eight miscarriages and longs desperately for another child. In her work as a midwife, she has begun to see unusual birth defects, such as a baby born with a severe brain defect.

When an environmentalist comes into town, Colleen begins to believe the connection between the spraying and the birth defects and illnesses she has seen within the community. Naturally this puts a strain on her marriage and the relationship with her extended family.

This was a very maudlin, slow-moving story, but I came to love the Gunderson family. The people in the community were hard-working and hard-living.

This is not a story for readers who are looking for an uplifting read, but it was well written and I found it interesting enough to read until the end.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for allowing me to read and advance copy. I am happy to offer my honest review.

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I really enjoyed reading this book. Author Ash Davidson skillfully involves the reader in the lives of the Gundersen Family and their logging community in Northern California in the 1970's. Rich Gundersen does the dangerous job of climbing and cutting the redwood trees. The Company is all powerful

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and profits come before worry about mudslides and environmental risks of the pesticides they use. Rich's wife suffers many miscarriages and other women in the community lose their babies to fatal deformities. The novel presents both sides of the story: Workers who are desperate to keep their logging livelihoods and environmentalists who are fighting against contamination and deforestation. The characters and their concerns are very vivid and realistic. I do admit that several times during the course of reading I wished that a glossary of logging vocabulary was included.

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Straddles the line between commercial and literary fiction almost perfectly. A safe bet for most book clubs.