I loved this book. It did start slow, and for me was a more difficult read as it seemed to jump around a lot, but it was completely worth pushing through. It is a topic that is relatable in this day, but a subject I didn't know much about.

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson will enlighten and enrage you as the story of life among the giant redwoods in the 1970's unfolds. The livelihoods of the timber loggers and their families in the backwoods are dependent on the industry that is poisoning nature and the streams that are necessary for survival. This is a tale of wonder and woe but one that is difficult to put away.

Absolutely incredible! Once you get past the logger talk, the story is heartfelt and touching. Don’t miss this one.

Damnation Spring is set in a logging town of northern CA in the 1970s. A couple is on opposite sides of a hot button issue involving herbicides used by the logging company. I was most intrigued by the ecological premise of the book (thinking of the feel I got from Once There Were Wolves), but ultimately that piece ended up lacking a bit for me.

This is the kind of book that will stay with you for days! I was unfamiliar with the logging community, but not unfamiliar with the environmental impact of companies and the effects on communities. The two combined made for a really interesting read. Rich and Colleen, the couple at the center of this story, were very compelling characters and I couldn't wait to find out what happened to them. All of the surrounding characters were also really interesting.

My only complaint about this book was that the logging jargon was often confusing with no explanation for the reader. I found myself re-reading sentences to try to understand what was happening.

Unfortunately, Damnation Spring was all "damnation" and no "spring". I attempted to read this book with a friend and we both did not finish. While the cover, title, and synopsis are A+, the writing was bogged down and stuffy, and felt like you were trudging through mud.

I'm able to admit this wasn't the book for me but that others may love it.

Thanks for the opportunity to read this one! I wish it would have worked out.

The question of community comes up against the concern for that communities welfare. The central theme in this story so rich you can small the timber, that feeds this community. A lyric novel of a family caught in a crossroads. The Pacific California coast serves as the backdrop for a showdown between a life inherited and a life newly formed. Colleen, who helps bring new life into the world as a midwife begins to suspect that the miscarriages and infant deaths she sees are related to a chemical used in the area. A threat to the way of life , the only life many here know, brings about a heat and pain none saw coming. The time for truth will test and in some cases prove the mettle of this tiny community.

initial thoughts: I really wanted to like this one, but I just didn't.

the story, the location, the characters, all of it appealed to me as soon as I requested this one on NetGalley.

however, all three of these things fell short for me. the story didn't pick up for me until about halfway, and then the author seemed to gloss over the actual conflict between Rich & Colleen. I wanted more. the location was also a bit of a snooze, focusing way too much on logging technical jargon. as for the characters? I was bored all the way through, not really caring what happened to whom.

this book was also overly descriptive. and if I hear the words "burl bowl" ever again, it will be too soon.

I received this book as a "Read Now" copy after the publication date, and therefore it became a lower priority for reading and review without a clear deadline. Boy, was I wrong to delay! Damnation Spring was that rare book that educates the reader about the logging of the redwoods and all the politics and pressures that are involved in the lumber business while spinning a compelling story with interesting characters. Ash Davidson also makes a case against the use of toxic herbicides to clear the land, and the efforts of environmentalists to get the substances banned. I found the detailed descriptions of the work of the loggers to be necessary to understand the motivations of the opposing groups in the story, and the author wrote beautifully about the redwood forest, as well.

Rich and Colleen Gundersen are raising their son near Damnation Grove, and Rich, a third generation logger whose own father was killed on the job, buys a section of the redwood grove in a bid to make a better life for his son, Chub. Colleen wants another child, but after eight miscarriages, Rich is not thrilled with the idea of trying again. Colleen is a midwife, and what she has seen is concerning--a high incidence of birth defects and miscarriage in the county, which she starts to believe are the result of herbicides that have contaminated the spring. Politics and business collide with environmental concerns, and threaten the livelihood of the entire community.

I am struggling with a star rating for this book, as it was a real page-turner for me. I cared deeply about Colleen, Rich and Chub, and found the actions of the lumber company to be disgusting, particularly as evidence mounted that irreparable damage was being done. I learned a lot about how the logging industry works and what dangerous jobs it involves. On the other hand, I was a bit disappointed that some storylines are left dangling a bit with unresolved issues left up to the reader to imagine what might have happened. On the whole, I really liked the book, though, and will be looking for another by Ash Davidson in the future.

Thank you Netgalley, Simon & Schuster, and Ash Davidson for the electronic copy of the book Damnation Spring. This review represents my own opinions.

I have to respectfully disagree with everyone who says this book is just about logging. It was about so much more than that. This book is about a family. This book is about a community. This book challenged me in a way I wasn’t even ready for. It really made me think about two sides of an issue. It made me hug my husband and my children. It broke my heart. If you put this book down because you didn’t understand some logging terms, try again. I didn’t understand every single logging scene with full clarity- that’s not the point of the book. At the risk of being punny, you’re missing the forest for the trees.

Wow, this is a hard one to rate, but I'm rounding up. It was so engaging, although sometimes overly detailed or repetitive. Set in California in the late 70s, we see a community struggle as the way things are begin to be questioned, truths are uncovered, and sides are taken. It's very complex, with most people doing what they think is right while others are...well, not. This would be a great book club pick, with so many relationships and lots of symbolism to discuss!

This book wasn’t for me. I don’t think it was necessarily a bad book but I realized the deeper I got the more it was not my style. Writing was well done

I have some mixed feelings about this title. The characters are well-developed, believable, and quite a few will catch you by the heartstrings. The plot is interesting, but also a little discombobulated. Is this a story about dangers of logging to people and the environment? Is it a story about corporations and politician taking advantage of underserved populations (indigenous people, the poor, the uneducated)? Is it a story about a family doing the best it can to survive tragedy and poverty to find a way to a better life? All of these ring true, and while I appreciate a complex, fully developed plot, the majority of the book focused on all of these equally, leaving me feeling disoriented. The last quarter of the book focused on the family central to the narrative, which is the storyline I felt most connected to, and therefore I found it redeeming. I got a bit bogged down in the chapters that focused on the technicalities of logging and I wasn't sure of their purpose to the overall storyline. However, all told, I enjoyed this book, and by the end, was questioning if those "logging chapters" were more important than I originally gave them credit for. I'm glad I spent time with this novel. Thank you NetGalley and publishers for providing a digital ARC for review.

I am so sad that I didn't love this more. I really really really wanted to. And there is nothing wrong here. In fact, there is a lot that is perfectly right. There is just so much detail about the logging life that sometimes the story itself got lost, or I got bogged down. If you cut through all that extra stuff, the story is beautiful and sad. It's a hard life these people live and I'm glad I was able to get a look inside.

I've been thinking a lot about this book and am having a really hard time coming up with the words for how I feel about it! I really enjoyed it, that I can say. If it were a streaming show (which I can totally see it as a show) it would be labeled a drama. There is tension from all angles! The writing was wonderfully done so that it felt like I was right there in the Northern California forest. I live in Oregon and I've seen the push and pull between loggers and conservationists throughout the PNW. I feel like it does a good job of showing the struggles the logging communities have faced over the years. The story is not just about logging, it's also about small town relationships and how interconnected their lives can be. The characters in this story felt like real people. The ending was a little disappointing in my opinion, but when looking at the book as a whole, it was wonderful.

😢 This is how I feel after reading this book. I am gutted. The story is all about a logging community trying to hold on to the ways of the past and how much a family can withstand. We follow Colleen and Rich as they raise their son "Chub" in the redwoods of Northern California, just trying to survive and make a life for themselves. Their marriage is tested throughout from both the inside and outside forces. This book is beautifully written and emotionally draining in such a good way. I would highly recommend it. Thank you, NetGalley for the eARC. 4 stars.

I wanted to love this song more than I did. When I read the synopsis, I thought it would be great! This author is very talented. The descriptions had me feeling like I was right there, however, the story itself fell a little short for me.

A story about a small logging community of people who are suffering both financially and watching their health decline. Colleen and Rich live in the Pacific Northwest and have one son. Colleen longs for more children but after eight miscarriages she's loosing hope that will ever happen. She's had every test possible done but still no answers, until rumors start spreading that the chemicals being used are poisoning the town. Children are being born with malformations or dying, many people are sick, and the logging company is denying any responsibility. All the Gunderson's want is to protect their family and their friends, but soon they will find themselves up against the company execs and they play dirty. How can this town prove what's going on is because of herbicides? They can pull samples from the Damnation Springs and make a long list of all the health issues the town has, but it will be very hard to beat this and in the end the town has already suffered so much. Babies can't be brought back, crippling illness cannot be reversed, but they need to do what's right in order to fight for the next generation.

This story is not something I am typically drawn to so I am thankful for the opportunity to read and review something out of my comfort zone in exchange for an honest review.

The conflict between loggers need for jobs to survive and environmentalists need to protect the land for the future was an interesting idea for a plot.

The first half of the book was like reading a research paper on the logging industry. I don’t think the actual story line even started until around page 200 but even then it was a slow start to the plot. I wasn’t fully invested until the ending.

“…what was hope but belief, no matter how rare the miracle?”

DAMNATION SPRING is a powerful, captivating novel about one family in the middle of a conflict that threatens to irrevocably change a small logging community. The story takes place from 1977-8 on California’s rugged northern coast. Logging the ancient, beautiful redwood trees native to the area has sustained most of the white families in the area for generations, including Rich Gundersen, his younger wife, Colleen, and their son, Chub. With more forest protected as state and federal parkland and government regulations making the profit margins less generous, the men who work for Sanderson, the local logging company, find their livelihoods increasingly threatened. This is even more the case for Rich, who takes a gamble purchasing a large swath of old-growth trees to ensure a future for his family. Meanwhile Colleen, a midwife, has endured a string of miscarriages. She begins noticing more stillbirths, birth defects, and other ailments in local fauna. Her old boyfriend, Daniel Bywater, an enrolled member of the Yurok tribe with a doctorate in fisheries biology, enlists her to help test water in the spring on their property. When herbicides sprayed by Sanderson and the forest service are detected in the water and connected to the community’s afflictions, Rich and Colleen are split on either side of a dispute, testing their marriage and their values.

This was an intimate reading experience for me. I grew up in Humboldt County, just south of Del Norte county where the novel is set. My grandfather and great-grandfather both worked in the lumber industry, processing the wood harvested in the area. And even though this story happens twenty years before I was born, the people, their conflicts, and the atmosphere were so achingly recognizable to me. There’s a particular blend of fierce independence and unquestioning communal care in impoverished rural communities like these, where people are both deeply private and constantly in each other’s business. With that contradiction comes an almost reflexive distaste for outsiders, especially anyone seen as a threat to the community, and even more so people speaking a language that feels condescending to locals - which is part of what fuels the conflict between the loggers and the environmentalists. So much of what was said by characters in the novel I heard echoed throughout my childhood, reverberating through ongoing arguments about government regulations and individual autonomy, supporting local economies and preserving natural habitats. And of course, Davidson’s stunning descriptions of everything from sweeping redwood forests to homespun domestic items felt like home. All this kept me invested in the story and provided a space for me to work out some of my own mixed feelings about my hometown and my relationship to it.

DAMNATION SPRING is a meditative, evocative story. I initially found it moving too slowly for me, so I picked up the audiobook instead, which helped. Davidson has clearly done an intense amount of research on that time period in Del Norte and also knows the area personally, as she lived there for several years as a child. I do think at times the novel is overly descriptive, pulling me out of the story as I struggled to picture just what kind of tree-topping maneuver was happening. Davidson captures the people so well, creating characters that you root for even when they make frustrating decisions, with familial relationships bound by blood or other loyalties, affections mostly unspoken but no less strong for it. I especially liked the arc of Rich and Colleen’s relationship, their quiet, committed attention to each other, the subtleties of their disagreement, the difficulties of speaking aloud their private pain. The addition of Chub’s voice as a narrator in addition to Rich and Colleen was refreshing and, at times, gut-wrenching. I did find the sexism and anti-indigenous sentiments hard to stomach, though I’m certain it’s accurate. There are many issues explored here that continue to be relevant today: sustainable forestry, water quality, erosion, suppression of indigenous practices. It’s eerie to read this historical novel like this, seeing what has already been lost to environmental degradation and knowing how much more is yet to come. Overall it’s a perceptive, humanizing, and beautiful novel. Thank you to Scribner for the review copy!

Content warnings: injury, chronic pain, miscarriage, infant death, animal death, death of a loved one, grief, sexism/misogyny, ableist slurs, arson, violence