Ash Davidson

Book Loft rec

This was such a good book. It started out slow - Colleen has just lost her baby at 5 months (?) pregnant. She wants to try again, and Rich wants her to stop risking her health. Rich has gone ahead and put their savings toward a piece of land he has always wanted - and he hasn’t told her or put her name on the loan.

There’s a lot about logging - especially how dangerous it is. Rich’s dad was a logger and died early in Rich’s life. A close friend Lark took over as a father figure, and he is crippled in a logging accident.

Colleen had a boyfriend - part native Daniel, who has returned to the area to study the effects of logging (and the spraying that’s part of it) on the water and the fish. The old growth trees attract attention from ‘hippies’ who stage protests. A skull is found on about-to-be-logged land that halts all work for a search and a hearing.

So there’s that conflict. The loggers who want to protect their livelihood. The patriarchal lumber company. The protesters. And then the babies born with birth defects and the miscarriages. The deformed deer fetuses found in the woods. Bees and flowers killed by the spraying. Nosebleeds all the time.

Rich and Colleen come back together but the trouble outside their marriage starts - which side are you on? The land Rich owns can only be logged when the adjacent property is logged - until then it brings in nothing to pay off the mortgage. But there are landslides after roads are cut, and the hillsides are cleared. The tide begins to turn although the violence gets worse.

There isn’t a solution or a cure. The ending is sad. There are a lot of characters, and a lot of side stories, and it’s all very vivid.… (more)

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 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.… (more)