Damnation spring : a novel

Title:

Author:

Summary:

"For generations, Rich Gundersen’s family has chopped a livelihood out of the redwood forest along California’s rugged coast. Now Rich and his wife, Colleen, are raising their own young son near Damnation Grove, a swath of ancient redwoods on which Rich’s employer, Sanderson Timber Co., plans to make a killing. In 1977, with most of the forest cleared or protected, a grove like Damnation—and beyond it 24-7 Ridge—is a logger’s dream. It’s dangerous work. Rich has already lived decades longer than his father, killed on the job. Rich wants better for his son, Chub, so when the opportunity arises to buy 24-7 Ridge—costing them all the savings they’ve squirreled away for their growing family—he grabs it, unbeknownst to Colleen. Because the reality is their family isn’t growing; Colleen has lost several pregnancies. And she isn’t alone. As a midwife, Colleen has seen it with her own eyes. For decades, the herbicides the logging company uses were considered harmless. But Colleen is no longer so sure. What if these miscarriages aren't isolated strokes of bad luck? As mudslides take out clear-cut hillsides and salmon vanish from creeks, her search for answers threatens to unravel not just Rich’s plans for the 24-7, but their marriage too, dividing a town that lives and dies on timber along the way." -- Amazon.com.

Edition:

First Scribner hardcover edition.

Physical Description:

445 pages ; 24 cm

Genre:

Ecofiction.

Subject Term:

Families -- Fiction.

Miscarriage -- Fiction.

Loggers -- Fiction.

Herbicides -- Toxicology -- Fiction.

Forests and forestry -- Fiction.

Logging -- Fiction.

Environmental degradation -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

California, Northern -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Scribner,

Publication Date:

2021

ISBN:

9781982144401

Publication Information:

New York : Scribner, 2021.

Call Number:

DAVIDSON

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003513622	Adult Fiction	DAVIDSON Ash	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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On Order

Summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Named a Best Book of 2021 by Newsweek , the San Francisco Chronicle , The Washington Post , and the Los Angeles Times

"A glorious book--an assured novel that's gorgeously told." --The New York Times Book Review
"An incredibly moving epic about an unforgettable family." -- CBS Sunday Morning
"[An] absorbing novel...I felt both grateful to have known these people and bereft at the prospect of leaving them behind." --The Washington Post

A stunning novel about love, work, and marriage that asks how far one family and one community will go to protect their future.

Colleen and Rich Gundersen are raising their young son, Chub, on the rugged California coast. It's 1977, and life in this Pacific Northwest logging town isn't what it used to be. For generations, the community has lived and breathed timber; now that way of life is threatened.

Colleen is an amateur midwife. Rich is a tree-topper. It's a dangerous job that requires him to scale trees hundreds of feet tall--a job that both his father and grandfather died doing. Colleen and Rich want a better life for their son--and they take steps to assure their future. Rich secretly spends their savings on a swath of ancient redwoods. But when Colleen, grieving the loss of a recent pregnancy and desperate to have a second child, challenges the logging company's use of the herbicides she believes are responsible for the many miscarriages in the community, Colleen and Rich find themselves on opposite sides of a budding conflict. As tensions in the town rise, they threaten the very thing the Gundersens are trying to protect: their family.

Told in prose as clear as a spring-fed creek, Damnation Spring is an intimate, compassionate portrait of a family whose bonds are tested and a community clinging to a vanishing way of life. An extraordinary story of the transcendent, enduring power of love--between husband and wife, mother and child, and longtime neighbors. An essential novel for our times.

Author Notes

Ash Davidson was born in Arcata, California, and attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her work has been supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts and MacDowell. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Davidson's impressive debut chronicles life in a working-class community so thoroughly that the reader feels the characters' anguish as they're divided over environmental concerns that threaten their lives and livelihoods. The tale unfolds between 1977 and 1978 and follows the Gundersen family: husband and wife Rich and Colleen; and their kindergartner son, Chub. Rich is a fourth-generation logger who dreams of a less financially burdensome future for his family when, without telling Colleen, he plunks down their savings to buy a ridge near their home in Northern California with a harvestable forest of primordial redwoods. Meanwhile Colleen--who has suffered eight miscarriages before and after Chub's birth and who, as the local midwife, has witnessed a disturbing number of defective births--is listening to an environmentalist friend's warning that the defoliants used by the timber company that employs Rich are leaching lethal toxins into the local water supply. Davidson mirrors the tension between Rich and Colleen with empathetic descriptions of the struggles of their neighbors, many of whom cling desperately to their jobs in the face of mounting evidence that their duplicitous employer is poisoning them. The depiction of ordinary people trapped by circumstances beyond their control makes for a heart-wrenching modern American tragedy. Agent: Chris Parris-Lamb, the Gernert Co. (Aug.)

Library Journal Review

DEBUT Opening in summer 1977, Davidson's powerful debut novel about California logging families slowly uncovers the dirty secrets of the Sanderson Timber Company. Everyone's livelihood depends on Sanderson, so no one is talking about how they harvest Damnation Grove: spraying with herbicides similar to Agent Orange, working loggers to exhaustion and injury, and using force to eliminate anyone who speaks out against their practices. Fourth-generation logger Rich Gundersen is worn down from his injuries, while his wife, Colleen, a midwife, regularly witnesses miscarriages and the birth of malformed babies. Daniel Bywater, a Yurok fish biologist whose tribe has fished the area's creeks for centuries, arrives to study the suspect water quality and declining fish population. His presence, along with the protesters blocking roads and sabotaging machinery, stirs up unspeakable violence. Rich sees a way out, by purchasing an old-growth redwood stand whose million-dollar timber harvest should set up his family for life, but he doesn't count on family betrayal and the ruthlessness of timber company executives, the worst traitors of all. VERDICT Davidson's riveting page-turner reveals one harsh reality after another, with no happy ending. The stakes are high, loyalty vanishes, and family ties mean nothing. A strong writer to watch.--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO