Damnation Spring

Damnation Spring is the debut novel by Ash Davidson. Davidson is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and hails from Arcata, California, near where the novel takes place. Damnation Spring is an epic family drama set in the late 1970s that plays out against conflicts over the last redwood forests. Environmentalists want to save the majestic trees, but the community dependent on them for their livelihood feels otherwise. Davidson weaves a powerful tale from this tension that nods to some of the battles humans face today, with regards to protecting planet Earth. All references in this guide are to the 2021 first edition of the book, from Scribner.

Plot Summary

Rich and Colleen Gundersen are still reeling from Colleen’s latest miscarriage when an opportunity lands in Rich’s lap. Rich is from a long line of loggers working in northern California’s redwood forests. But despite years of loyal and dangerous work for the local timber company, Sanderson, Rich has struggled to find financial security.

When a local old-timer decides to sell a piece of land near Rich’s home, the temptation for Rich is too much. Atop the ridge stands the fabled “24-7” redwood, a tree his dead father loved. Rich believes if he can harvest it, plus the other old-growth timber on the land, he will be set for life and be able to provide for both Colleen and his young son, Chub. The one big catch, though, is that Rich needs Sanderson to put in access roads to its neighboring land at Damnation Grove, so that he can actually get his felled trees out of the forest, milled, and to market. Nevertheless, Rich uses his and Colleen’s life-savings as a down payment on the land, making the bet he can pull off the harvest, pay off the huge bank loan, and still come out ahead.

Meanwhile, things that once seemed certain in the logging community are shifting. A growing number of environmentalists are fighting to save the redwoods from extinction. When Rich and his foreman Don discover a human skull on a work site, they suspect sabotage from protesters. Whatever the cause, the logging operation must shut down and move to less lucrative harvesting of younger trees. During this time, Colleen, in her role as an amateur midwife, assists local births. A number of babies are being born without parts of their skull or brain. Colleen and the affected families put it down to bad luck at first. But they soon notice they and their children are suffering nose bleeds when Sanderson and other forestry stake-holders spray herbicides to keep the undergrowth down. One woman’s bees die mysteriously; another’s chickens begin giving birth to deformed chicks.

Into this situation steps Daniel Bywater, a Yurok man who grew up in the area before moving away to attend university. As teenagers, he and Colleen had a romantic fling, but they could not sustain it when he moved away to study. He has returned to the area to care for his ill mother and to study the effects of herbicides on the environment. He begins secretly taking water samples from local waterways and quickly makes himself unwelcome. He also rekindles his romance with Colleen, albeit briefly, when the pair have sex one afternoon. Colleen felt neglected by Rich after their string of miscarriages. But the guilt eats away at her, and her relationship with Daniel becomes fractious. Still, as he gathers evidence from around the community and its creeks, Colleen feels her loyalties divide.

That is a luxury Rich cannot afford, once Merle Sanderson, who currently runs day-to-day operations for the company, discovers Rich’s purchase of the ridge. Merle makes a show of magnanimity to Rich, sharing a map of the planned roads with him and assuring him their construction should go ahead without a hitch. But due to speculation over the human remains found on Sanderson land and rumors about the spraying, a local hearing is planned before redwood logging can recommence. Merle makes it clear to Rich that those roads and access to Sanderson’s saw mills are contingent on Rich’s public support.

At the hearing, Rich stand ups for Sanderson’s logging operation. But his efforts to keep Merle on his side are swiftly undone when Daniel takes to the microphone and names Colleen as one of the many women in the area to have suffered miscarriages or given birth to children with birth defects. Chaos ensues, and going forward Merle unleashes Rich’s brother-in-law Eugene as an enforcer, who uses threats and violence to keep activists like Daniel away from the logging operation. With Merle’s backing, Eugene also starts to poach valuable redwood burls from the remaining trees, as a sense builds that the future of logging in the area hangs in the balance.

The courts eventually give the go-ahead for harvesting to happen at Damnation Grove. The return to work is fraught for Rich, however. Colleen has helped Daniel collect water samples and is increasingly against the spraying. Eugene and others think Rich is tainted by association. But gradually, they settle back into the rhythm of the work they have always done. Construction of the roads that could save Rich’s investment gets underway.

Merle, however, seems to understand that Sanderson’s days are numbered, once it uses up the lucrative, old-growth redwoods it has relied on. With no warning, he sells Sanderson’s land out from under the loggers to the local authorities so it can be incorporated into the expanding state park. Rich’s investment looks doomed, and he begins to miss payments on the huge mortgage he took out to buy it. With Merle’s plans finally revealed, though, some sting goes out of the bitter rivalries, as everyone realizes that Merle played them all for fools. The same doesn’t hold true for Eugene’s feelings about Daniel, and one day he beats him to a pulp and almost drowns him in the process. Rich intervenes, despite having found out about his tryst with Colleen, to save his life. Rich tells Daniel he should get out of town while he still can. This is a warning that Daniel finally takes, despite having to leave his gravely ill mother and aging uncle.

Serenity begins to settle on Rich’s family. They buy clean, tanked water instead of drinking from Damnation Creek. Colleen reveals she is pregnant, and the couple hope that this time they might have a safe birth and sibling for Chub. Fate, though, intervenes. First, Eugene’s son Wyatt almost kills Chub, bashing his head against a rock after chasing and tormenting the younger boy. Chub survives and Wyatt apologizes, demonstrating a contrition that comes more reluctantly from his father. Second, Rich’s father-figure Lark dies, but not before pressing some cash into Rich’s hand as a loan to tide him over. The full scale of Lark’s generosity becomes clear when Rich goes to make what he thinks is an overdue payment to the bank: Lark has paid off the $200,000 balance on Rich’s loan in a final gesture to the boy Lark swore to care for after Rich’s biological father’s death. The news elates Rich. He emerges from the bank in a happy daze, buying a goldfish for Chub and a necklace for his pregnant wife. His euphoria, however, costs him dearly on the drive home, when he skids off the road into the ocean, dying instantly.

The accident shatters Colleen. She must find a way to pick her life up and soldier on with her son Chub and an infant in her womb, in the long shadow of the ancient redwoods she and Chub now own.