What a wonderful novel! It’s a little slow at the start and it saturates the reader with many details, details that seem unimportant until they become important components of the story later on. Although this is her debut novel, Ash is already a highly skilled writer. She brings each character to full life, using changing perspectives to enhance rather than to confuse, as so many lesser talented writers seem to do these days. Her ability to bring her setting to life and to provide details about logging without drowning the reader in them is to be admired. Readers who are interested in books with environmental themes can add this to the growing list of ‘must read’ novels (Once There Were Wolves is another excellent read) that tackle the theme without letting it overwhelm the story of real people whose way of life is changing. Highly recommended.

Although environmental stories are not my usual reads, I was intrigued by the premise from the opposite perspective. Instead of focusing on the “tree huggers” (which was the focus of my last environmental book), this one focuses on the working class loggers in the 1970s.

Rich has been cutting down redwood trees as long as he can remember. Almost 50 now and after his younger wife’s miscarriage, he makes the decision to use their life savings to buy a huge section of land with the intention to profit off the cut redwoods.

Unknown to him, his wife, Colleen, begins to question whether her miscarriage (and the seven previous ones which she kept a secret) were caused by the sprays used to keep the land free of weeds. Working in secret with her ex boyfriend, she begins to wonder whether the nose bleeds, cancers, and deaths are worth it trade off for the income Rich gets.

The story is also told through Chub’s perspective. As their only kid, his chapters showcase his innocence in what’s going on around him.

The synopsis that I provided should have really set the background for the story, but instead this plot lasted for over 70% of the novel. Every plot point that I mentioned kept getting repeated and it seemed that there was no escalation.

You may be asking me what then was happening for majority of the book?

Well, we really meet a lot of random and pretty asshole-ish characters. By a LOT, it honestly felt like every chapter a new character was interjected. I didn’t use the word introduced, because no introduction was ever given. They would just appear using logger jargon. Their whole family was also mentioned as if we should know who they are in relation to Rich or Colleen. I honestly wouldn’t be able to describe the other characters no matter how hard I tried (and trying to find them in the book would be impossible).

There was also a weird focus on some storylines. Rich’s toothache was mentioned so many times for absolutely no reason. We’re given background on his previous dentist. We’re told the life story of the current dentist he refuses to see. We get a random chapter of him going to the dentist. It makes no sense.

Overall, maybe the last 10% of this book actually felt like something was going on. I still don’t completely understand what’s happening with the land in the end (but I can’t say I ever knew what was going on with it).

I might have set too high expectations for this and ultimately had to really push myself to read to the very end.

This gritty tale of a logging family is complicated and eye-opening. Having never known how the logging industry works, this story tells of the harsh reality of living and working in a logging town. Told in three perspectives, each perspective shows how a family interacts and is affected as part of the logging community. Rich Gundersen has logging in his blood, logging has been a part of his family for generations. Rich has dreams of providing for his family with one big risk. Colleen Gundersen is the local midwife, but with each child that is born with defects, stillborn or miscarried, the women start to lose their confidence in her. Colleen herself has miscarried multiple pregnancies and desperately wants another child. Chub, the only child of Colleen and Rich is well loved, worships his fathers, adores his mother. However, even a child can be affected by logging. Each character brings their hurts, worries, dreams, and joys to the story. This story is full of heartbreak, gritty reality, harsh living conditions, shameful secrets but also love. Love of family, love of a spouse, love of a child and love of a community. It took me a bit to get into the story but I was glad I finished it.

First, know that I started this novel early one morning and stayed up until 5 a.m. to finish it. Ash Davidson's novel about families, forests and the environment is so relevant in today's climate. The novel is set in the late 1970s, but its issues apply to any time. Colleen and Rich are struggling to survive in the world of logging redwoods in California It's a dangerous profession with daily life-threatening risks. Money is tight, but families are, too. They must rely on each other in good times and bad. And bad times have arrived. Something is causing babies to be stillborn or with only partial brains. Commercial logging is leading to more mudslides, cutting residents off from the few resources they have. Add in corporate greed, environmentalists and the human desire to do better, and readers get a clear idea of the struggles facing the region. Through it all, the importance of standing together as a family and holding onto doing what's right speaks loud and clear.

“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. They’ll go back where they came from, but we’ll wake up right here tomorrow. This is home.”

Set in the late 1970’s, along the coast in California redwood country, this novel took my breath away. The division between environmentalists trying to save the forest, and generations of logging families trying to save their lives and livelihoods, is expected, but stunning. The overlapping events and often misguided reactions create drama that had me speeding through the pages. As a child of the 60s, when our mothers were told that smoking and drinking while pregnant was completely safe, I am grateful to now live in a different time. And moving forward, this debut novel has encouraged me to keep asking the unasked and difficult questions.

The three points of view artfully guide a well conceived plot along with a precision and cadence I rarely experience. Perhaps my favorite, 5 year old Chub’s story, provided reality (along with levity) to some heartbreaking and heartwarming situations.

Recommended for fans of The Secret Wisdom of the Earth by Christopher Scotton, The Overstory by Richard Powers, and This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

Thank you to Scribner Publishing and NetGalley for the privilege of reading an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. My review will be published on Goodreads and bookstagram account @bookshelfbybeckwith closer to publication.

Set in the Pacific Northwest, the story of a town that is known for their logging. Rich, Colleen and Chubb Gunderson are the family of this epic story. Set in the late 70’s they are a family trying to survive, but seem to always have major setbacks as this story tells.

Rich is older when he marries Colleen, but he is known as being one of the nicest guys ever. All he has ever known is logging. He sets his mind to buy his own parcel, where he can make some serious money. Colleen, loves her husband and her son, but deals with the nightmare of 8 miscarriages and the want for another child. She is also the unofficial mid-wife for this town. Chubb their young son loves his dad more than anything, and grows up with his close-knit friends and family.

While things seem quite good by the setup, the Gunderson’s and town are struggling. Many people are suffering miscarriages or worse, by the spraying they do in the forests. Also, the town is making deals that cause a ripple affect for many people.

This is a beautiful family drama. Told from the perspective of all three of the Gunderson, Ash Davidson gives us an unforgettable story. It is a lengthy book, but with very short chapters that kept this story moving quickly. For people who love the family narrative this is a can’t miss.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Damnation Spring felt oddly disjointed to me. I honestly am going to have to DNF this book because I can't seem to get into the dialogue or the characters. The writing jumps around a lot for me, sometimes honing in on smaller, minute details that don't seem to add anything to the story or the situation at hand. There was nothing to grip me in this tale or keep me invested.

It's going to take a while for me to get over this book. Unlike most of the other books I have read recently, this one touches upon something very real but forgotten issue. It shows the war between "loggers" and "environmentalists" where it should have been war between "capitalists" and "others". The loggers were the ones who paid the actual price for this war. Because they were the working class. They didn't have much saying into what their masters decide. They didn't know they were the victims of same crime killing their livelihood while all they think of was keeping food at the table.

These loggers have been working at these redwood forests for generations. When a father was killed on the job, the son took over his spot only to leave it to his own son after. It's a dangerous job and Rich didn't want his son to be part of this vicious cycle. On a whim, he decided to buy the patch of land that was everyone's dream to stop his son from being a logger as well. Unfortunately, he didn't know others' plans.... While he was trying to figure out what to dos and how to dos, his wife was suffering multiple miscarriages.

Ash Davidson had very tasteful way of weaving different aspects into this story in a balanced manner. Like I said this tragedy will stay with me for long time. I think everyone should read this book.

Damnation Spring is an ambitious, heart-wrenching debut with beautifully flawed characters and an immersive setting. It’s not often a book brings me to tears, but this book left me an emotional mess. I won’t be surprised if it ends up as one of my top reads for the year. I would even venture to say it’s a perfect novel.

While it took me a while to settle into, by the end of the book I was completely invested in the story of this broken and troubled family. I didn’t want to leave them. Davidson has brought a small logging town in the 1970s Pacific Northwest to life. And while some of the logging jargon was hard to follow at times, it never took me out of the book. In fact, it made it even more real.

And that’s what they made Google for, anyway, right?? I love when a good story also teaches me something.

I was repeatedly impressed with Davidson’s ability to have me sympathizing with the loggers when I knew if I was plopped down into this story, I’d be one of the hippie tree-huggers. She humanized each character, whether they were ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

The book is told from three different points of view: Rich, his wife Colleen, and their five year old son Chub. I was never lost when the views changed, each voice distinct and beloved by the end.

While it deals with some very heavy and serious subjects—environmental degradation, infidelity, miscarriage, birth defects—at its heart, it’s a novel about perseverance, family history, commitment, and love. This story wrecked me. In a good way, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

The ending of this one is gutting. Beautiful writing, fully imagined characters. Some of the logging details drained and were confusing, but the gist of that portion of the plot was clear enough. Author did a good job of presenting both sides, those who made their living off of logging and those concerned with conservation and the harmful chemicals used to accomplish some of the task. Ash Davidson is one to watch.

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for sharing the ARC of this debut novel. I give all the stars to this one. The author has created a tremendous sense of place and a wealth of credible sympathetic characters. I was engrossed in the plot and deeply moved by the events. Books don’t often bring me to tears, but this one did, although it ends on a hopeful note. Highly recommend this to all.

Set in the late 1970's in the logging territory of northern California, "Damnation Spring" tells the story of logging families who depend on their seasonal work to support their families, and have little use for the "hippies" (aka ecologists) who are fighting against the destructive clear-cutting policies of the logging companies. The Gundersen family have been loggers for generations; Rich, Colleen and their young son Chub are close and loving towards each other, but Colleen has had 8 miscarriages, the most recent one when the baby girl was at 5 months gestation. Rich doesn't want to keep trying to have another baby because he sees the torment that it has caused Colleen. Colleen is an unofficial midwife in the area and has seen too many malformed and abnormal babies born. When an old boyfriend of hers, now a research scientist, comes back to the area to do some research on the waters in the creeks that feed the loggers' homes, she finds herself in a complicated situation. The scientist believes that the herbicides sprayed to reduce brush along the logging roads has entered the water system and is causing many health problems in the community. Of course, no one wants to believe him because it would alter their way of living and ability to make a living.

In beautiful, concise prose, the author portrays the relationships and challenges among the logging companies, their illnesses and injuries, and their sometimes prickly links with the logging companies. Alcohol, infidelity, and a deep mistrust of anyone that threatens their way of life are pervasive. There is a lot of frustration and sadness in this novel, but also a lot of love and even some redemption. A first class effort for a debut from an author who grew up in the area she writes about.

The 1970s brought a lot of changes to the US, and the Pacific Northwest was not excluded. The formation of new national parks and the rise of protests for environmental concerns caused a shift in the lumberjack communities. Damnation Spring is a story about a small family in a community affected by this shifting landscape.

There were a lot of positive qualities about this story. Number one, the sends of place is phenomenal. While reading this book, I was living in the Pacific Northwest, amongst the redwoods and the small town folk with down-to-earth lives. Along with that, the characters are richly developed and the story is interesting, empathetic, and thought provoking. It is beautifully written, the prose is thorough and elegant. I think this could make a fantastic mini-series or movie, with the right cast and director, a la Dances with Wolves, Legends of the Fall, or A River Runs Through It.

All this considered, for me, the pace was just too slow. I found myself rushing toward the action too many times because I was bored with the repetitive descriptions of their everyday lifestyle. I would get confused with the syntax and have to reread, which was frustrating. I could not find that steady flow. This was a big negative for me and that alone brought my rating down to three-stars, I’ll round up to 4 when needed.

I recommend this book for those who love a well-written story about the struggles and pain of common people. You will get to know the characters, hope with them, and sadly, grieve with them. I was definitely attached to these characters. I wanted to know how everything was going to play out so I stuck with it, but it was a struggle. Patience will be required and rewarded.

Thank you NetGalley for sending me an advanced copy of this book. I was transported into a Pacific Northwest logging community and completely enthralled with Rich, his wife Colleen, and their young son Chub and all of their ups and downs. An amazing novel about family, community, and doing what’s right even when it’s not popular. This is a book I will be thinking about for a long time.

Edit: I had to come back after finishing this book to say "wow, very powerful story!"

Not what I expected but I gave reading it a solid try, putting it down and trying again several times before I could keep going -- it was a bit difficult figuring out what the plot was but eventually, around 30% it came together. Well written (heads up: a good bit of crude language in places), the characters were were well formed, and environmental and social issues were well woven into the story. This could be a book to either sway opinion on the harm of herbicides or teach you to empathize with a segment of proud but working poor skilled labor, or both. It was easy to understand how these small west coast communities were desperately trying to hold onto a way of life while fighting off the knowledge they were about to be crushed under unstoppable change (environmentalists and scientists and government regulations vs whole communities bound together by local economies tied to logging redwood forests). These scenarios and families seemed very real and reminded me of great writing about southern Appalachian life, what it takes to survive a hard scrabble life. While I liked or empathize with a number of the characters, I found the book a bit depressing and a bit of a slog to keep reading at points. I'm not sure how it will end but I can say that the author is skilled in accurately making the environment itself a primary character in this novel.

I felt every moment of this book - the pull between wanting justice for the toxic chemicals runoff but also the fight for the loggers to keep their jobs and livelihoods. In fact, I'd imagine this is a pretty accurate portrayal of the struggle in this region in the 70s and 80s. I also felt the heartache, the ups and downs of marriage, the difficulties of motherhood and making choices for families, the struggles of a community.
The writing was well done and constantly engaging. This book will sell well to a wide range of audiences!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I did not enjoy this book as much as other reviewers seemed to enjoy it. I love that area and have been there within the past 6 months. It is a poor area, but just beautiful. I think the book reinforced the poverty and the hard life of the region and made it a sad book for me. It was informative and a good story but not a light read. I gave it 3 stars, not because of the writing, but because it was not uplifting for me.

I received a free ARC ebook of Damnation Spring from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Generations of hard work have left Rich Gunderson and his family still on the precipice of economic disaster. For them and their community, logging the big trees was all they knew. They were proud of their work, proud of their strength, and proud of their resilience. They recognized the danger of their work and memorialized those who had died felling the ancient forests. Now, in the late 1970s, everything is changing. The environmental movement has gained political and popular strength and Rich and his contemporaries can see their lives just slipping away.

For the first third of this book, it is too easy to think that they should just recognize the changes coming and move on. (A contemporary example would be the coal mining industry that is in serious and inevitable decline but still is the lifeblood of whole communities.) But how do you just abandon your history, your home, your life when the future is so uncertain and you don't have the skills or the cash to jump into a new life? And can the methods of clear cut logging and spraying herbicides be really bad when they have been used for years and accomplish the tasks required? Herbicide use is casually pervasive with no precautions taken.

Colleen, Rich's younger wife, assists at births when women don't have the resources for traditional medical care. She has had several miscarriages and there is a disturbing trend of horrific birth defects that are kept private. It takes an outsider, Daniel - Colleen's former boyfriend and a former local boy - to bring questions out in the open. He and his interfering ways are met with hostility and outright violence.

Rich just wants to provide for his family the only way he knows how. An almost mystical stand of tall trees, inaccessible by the current roads, comes up for sale so Rich buys it without telling his wife. He has mortgaged their future in the hope that the acreage will be logged for a real profit. Land ownership, however, comes with a hefty price. The relationship between Rich and Colleen is a lovely one that might be fractured by their differing views.

Davidson clearly has affection and respect for the people who long to hold onto the past so they can have a present; he does not, however, shy away from the environmental cost of their actions. Rich and his coworkers frequently look back to a time when the salmon were more plentiful and the air was cleaner but the need for a steady paycheck outweighs their nostalgia.

Damnation Spring is, at times, an uncomfortable book to read. Readers will wonder at the resilience of the people amidst the ache of their backs. There is much to learn here about the hard work of moving forward as individuals, as families, and as communities.

Ash Davidson’s impressive debut novel takes place in Humboldt County California, one of my favorite parts of the world. It is home to the Giant Redwoods and some of the most spectacular shoreline you will ever see. It is also Ground Zero for the never-ending battle between preservationists, environmentalists, and developers.
And that is what forms the heart-wrenching tension at the core of “Damnation Spring”.
Humboldt County is the location of one of the original virgin growth Redwoods, trees that have stood for hundreds, even thousands of years, enduring harsh climate, fires, and human exploitation. They are magnificent and seminal. Being among them reminds us of our place in the eco-system, as only a single species, but the one that can both save or eradicate this special eco-system.

The book is focused around the people who have lived in Humboldt County for generations, including those indigenous families who have lived off this land forever. The land is the source of heritage, pride, and identity. It is also the source of livelihood. Managing that balance is an age-old challenge that has led to generations of triumph for some, struggle for most, tragedy for far too many.

“Damnation Spring” is a lot of book. There are sections throughout that will teach you things that you never knew. There may be moments while reading where you wonder whether this is information that you will ever need to know. But the way that Davidson communicates the knowledge through the thoughts and dialogue of fully fleshed out characters is an art. It is worth every minute and serves as the foundation for the nuanced, compelling, and immensely plausible narrative.

And, it is a story that will break your heart. There are moments of charm, joy, levity, and hope, but they are overshadowed by hardship, violence, and tragedy. You will want to be prepared.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for the dARC.

Damnation Spring
by Ash Davidson
Scribner
General Fiction (Adult)
Pub Date 03 Aug 2021 | Archive Date 03 Aug 2021

Wonderful debut novel! This is one of the best books I've read this year. Great setting and character development. Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for the ARC. This book should do very well.


5 star