Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson is a rich, emotional novel about a logging family in the 1970’s California redwoods. They face hardships both professionally and deeply personally. This will be a fit for fans of Kristin Hannah’s “The Great Alone” or those who enjoyed memories including “Educated,” “The Glass Castle,” and “Hillbilly Elegy.”

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.

This book started slow and I wasn’t sure I would like it. Then I got into it and the setting really started pulling me in. Having a history in the medical field and kids in environmental studies really brought the book home for me. What worked was the setting, the topic , the family connections . What didn’t was the slower beginning . I would recommend and in fact I have and I bought a copy . Thank you to NetGalley for the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Damnation Spring is the debut novel by Ash Davidson set among the giant redwoods of Northern California in 1977.
Rich Gunderson is a third generation logger and tree topper. Logging is a dangerous job and the industry is now constrained by rules that bring about continuing layoffs.
Rich’s wife, Colleen, is an amateur midwife in town and mother to their young son, Chub. The couple want a better life for their son and set on two different paths to reach their ultimate goal.
Rich without Colleen’s knowledge invests all of their savings in a 700-acre property ripe for logging that could keep him in business for generations.
His wife wants another child but after suffering multiple miscarriages, believes that the chemicals being used by the logging company are responsible for the towns health problems.
Conflict between the logging company and environmental groups lead to tensions not only between Rich and Colleen but also members of the town now facing the need to choose between economic and health concerns.
Damnation Spring may be the story of one couples struggle to keep their family intact during a turbulent dangerous time in 1977 but it is no different from the struggles that families and towns face today.
I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley. #NetGalley #DamnationSpring

Thank you to @netgalley & @scribnerbooks for access to this e-book! I received this book after it’s pub date, so I slept on it for waaay too long. I definitely should have picked it up sooner because I really enjoyed it.
 
For starters, the characters were really fun. Whether they were easily likeable or downright awful, it made for a captivating cast. The story is told through 3 POVs, Rich, who is a redwood logger near the California coast; his wife, Colleen; and their son, Chub (who is only 5-6 throughout the story so his chapters didn’t happen often but were still an interesting perspective).
 
The story as a whole was fascinating. Reading about all the intricacies of working with and taking down these monstrous trees was really unique (albeit a little confusing at times – a lot of lumber buzzwords that went right over my head lol). And the small town community vibes were good too. Add in the mystery around the chemicals being sprayed to make way for the loggers to work (and whether or not they were affecting the people living there), and it made for a really well-rounded story.
 
I will say that I’m still not sure how I felt about the ending. It wasn’t really what I expected (or wanted). Also, some parts were a bit slower than others, but overall, I really liked this one.

Damnation Spring, the first novel of Ash Davidson, is a powerful heart-rending story of the forces that can shatter a marriage, a town, a way of life.

Colleen Gunderson is an amateur mid-wife, who is desperate for a 2nd child after several miscarriages - many more than her husband Rich who is a fourth generation tree topper, knows. Their one child, Chubb, lives for the tales his father relates of their family's history among the towering redwoods, some that began growing during the time of Christ. They live in the beautiful northwest among these towering redwoods, where the logging industry has made a good living for families for over 100 years. Rich fills Chubb's days and memories with the folklore and woodcraft he was taught.

Colleen, who tends to the poor pregnant wives and daughters of these loggers, begins paying close attention to the numbers of those who either miscarry or bring to term disabled babies. To take the anxiety even higher, a group of protesters show up in the area, determined to stop the logging and a researcher testing the local waterways for evidence of dangerous insecticides.

Davidson takes a complicated story and skillfully pulls together the disparate parts and assembles them in a whole that is both beautiful and disturbing. She uses the viewpoints of Rich, Colleen and even young Chubb to show what a confusing problem with which we are all faced - how to enjoy the beauty we have been given but also how to use what we have to make a living, as well as a life.

It’s 1977 and Colleen and Rich Gundersen live with their young son Chub in a logging town on the Northern coast of California. They like everyone else in their small community live by tree harvesting seasons dictated by the rains that come each year.

Rich is a tree-topper, a dangerous job if there ever was one, as he scales redwoods hundreds of feet high just like his father and grandfather before him. He was born to log, it’s in his blood, but he is tired. It’s a physically taxing job, and he wants an easier life for his son. Without telling his wife, he leverages everything for a piece of ancient redwoods, that once cut for timber, should set them up for life. A typically straightforward and fair man, keeping this secret pains him.

Colleen stays at home with their young son Chub and midwifes locally for those who cannot afford to go to the hospital. In the last several years she has seen more women suffer from miscarriages (including several herself), and those blessed with pregnancies that make it to term seem to have a lot of problems—severe problems. When an old love comes back to town, she doesn’t want to see him, but when he explains the water is being poisoned by the spray the logging companies use, she is forced to listen.

The town and the Gundersens themselves, quickly become divided. There are those who are loyal to the industry that has fed and clothed their families for generations. And then there are the others—the ones who find all these health problems in their community suspect and want to get to the bottom of it. The conflict starts at a simmer, and quickly escalates causing irreparable damage so many in the community.

This novel is about a way of life that is disappearing and how a community evolves. It’s about friends and family becoming adversaries. It’s about the impact of man on the environment. It’s about love and marriage and how much a bond can be tested without breaking. Though a bit verbose at times for me, especially all the logger jargon, I appreciate the author’s attention to detail. If you want a fast paced book, this isn’t it. Damnation Spring reads like literary fiction at its finest.

Thank you to NetGalley, Scribner, and of course Ash Davidson for the advanced copy. Damnation Spring is out now. All opinions are my own.

This novel was…a lot. I felt such a range of emotions reading it - between anger, frustration, heartbreak, fear, etc.
Rich, Colleen, and their son Chub (that name irritated me), live in California on coast in a rural Redwood logging town. There is so much to unpack here, marriage, death, infidelity, child loss, birth defects, poison, strained relationships, the list goes on. Although this is a work of fiction, it made me consider all of the chemicals we interact with daily and what implications they may have on our lives.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This story was beautifully written and I really took my time reading it. Part of the reason I took my time was because the beginning started off very slow. The story was descriptive, and although it did seem to be too much at times, I think the reader would have been lost without it unless they had a background in logging. I liked the dual perspective, but I definitely enjoyed Colleen's parts much more than Rich. There was a lot of depth to this and as long as you are not expecting to devour this is one setting, I think it would be very enjoyable. I would recommend this to readers that enjoyed books like The Great Alone and The Four Winds.

Overtly descriptive to the point of obnoxious and/or annoying. There's lots of logging talk without much context, so those of us that aren't arborists or aren't well-versed on forests and agriculture, won't really understand what's going on with those parts of the book. I see this is a debut novel, so I'm giving a lot of leeway for this budding author, as I see quite a bit of potential here. I just couldn't get on board with this particular book though; there's just too much in the way of pointless descriptions and logging jargon. It ruined what would have otherwise been a good family drama novel. Anyways... better luck next time 👍

Thanks netgalley for giving me the advanced pdf so that I can share my thoughts and opinions with y'all 🧡

The first 20% is a slog, maybe even the first 40%. But by the end I was sitting with tears streaming down my face. I became attached to the characters, the setting, the entire plot. It’s a story of life and love and loss, it’s a story of growth, forgiveness and hope, it’s a story of family, work and trees. I almost gave up and I’m glad I didn’t.

This book is interesting because of its (modern) historical perspective on environmental issues. I also wanted to know more about it because it takes place in Northern California, a familiar location with awe-inspiring redwoods. It's heavy, though this is to be expected given the premise, but worthwhile.

thought I was going to really like this book, when I read the synopsis and blurbs, but it turned out to just be okay to me.

I found that the book became sluggish to me at times. There were a lot of technical terms for logging that I had no idea what meant. That to me bogged the book down.

The only characters I liked where Rich, and Colleen. The others got on my nerves. There was a little violence in the book. Remember that when you read this.

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for the Kindle Version of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’d like to start off by saying that this book would probably be most enjoyable for people who enjoy 1970s US historical fiction, as well those that are into environmental-themed reads. The novel’s concept is interesting, and you really get to know each of the characters involved. Although I found myself frequently getting distracted and could barely focus on this read; I spent months trying to read this chunks at a time so I could review this as fairly as possible Dr spite my apparent disinterest. I snagged this as a ARC from @netgalley, as I had heard great things about it. I found that I learned quite a bit about how the logging process goes, and it inspired a variety of conversations with my relatives about their memories of the time. As someone who has seen the environmental changes to my Southern California town over a few years, I felt for those residents of Damnation Springs that represented everyone who was tired of our forests being destroyed. I’ve seen my town get drier, hotter, and a whole lot less green. Even if I did not really care for the writing style, I will agree that it was covering some very important issues. I think what really made this a 3/5 for me though was the ending; it felt too cliche after the originality of the rest of the story.

I was very excited by the description of this story - a family drama built about the logging industry and a little mystery about why there are so many miscarriages in their community. There were things that I liked about this book, especially Colleen and the quiet relationship that she shares with Rich, but also things that were not my cup of tea. The story starts off slowly, with a lot of description of the place, and the industry, and the families and then...stays slow for a very long time. Davidson is a lovely writer and I'm glad that I read it, but wanted it to be more than it ended up being.

This book is incredibly amazing and written so beautifully. The prose is like listening to a song that tugs at your heartstrings. Set in 1977 California and parts of Oregon, Rich and Colleen find themselves at polar opposites regarding of issues surrounding them and their family as well as many people in their community. Rich is a tree-topper and Colleen is a non-professional midwife. She's seen many miscarriages and even had eight herself; however, it isn't immediately known why this is. Chub is their five-year-old son who has his own POV which is very unusual in a book of this nature, so as I was reading it I kept wondering if something horrific was going to happen to him. He is a pertinent part of the story. I liked all of their characters but there were some characters I despised as they were bullies or I simply didn't like what they stood for. This family learns to fight for their position in their community via who they are and Rich and Colleen are not always on the same side. Marital problems arise and that's never a good thing, but they find ways to maneuver through difficult times but not without tragic events.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

I was pretty emotionally invested in Colleen’s story and the environmental impacts of the forestry industry in this town. Rich was alright. Chub was cute.

Was going to be a 4 star read for me, but the ending. After so much tragedy, what’s the point at just tacking on some more at the end like that?

I just reviewed another book and interestingly I am going to have to express almost the exact same sentiments about this one. Basically, Damnation Spring has an interesting premise and setting. BUT... it was too long, one POV was far more interesting than the other, not much happens until the last 1/4 of the book, and I was slightly bored throughout. My main complaint is that there was too much logging jargon. I just feel like this book could have been so much better than it was.

You know those shows/books when a character tells a big whopper and continues to build on that lie until he or she is caught? Well, this book gave me anxiety, because I knew in the end the consequences for Rich’s deceit were going to be horrendous.

Ash Davidson’s debut was beautifully and lyrically written. Her descriptions of people and places were impressive; I felt like I was in the community and could see the people and the sites. Here’s a description of one person: “… heavy torso thrust forward like a toad walking upright.” Brilliant!

The author was born in Arcata, California, the epicenter of the Damnation Spring, and she clearly did her research about the era and the challenges facing the logging industry, (albeit she included too excessive minutiae about the processes involved in harvesting timber.) The book also contained fascinating information on the effects of toxins such as Agent Orange. It authentically set in the late 1970s—the clothes they wore, the cars, they drove, the foods they ate. Tab, Coca-Cola’s first diet soft drink was all the rage (discontinued in 2020) and I had plenty of friends who depended on it. Yuck.

Although much of the novel was gorgeous, it was heavy on metaphor and simile, and the multiple narratives didn’t work written in third person. Her overuse of words and phrases was distracting. “Burl bowl” was used 15 times.

In the end, Damnation Spring is about a heart-wrenching clash between environmentalists and loggers that destroyed families and an industry by an author to watch. 3.5 stars.

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 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.