Scan barcode
A review by sterlingisreading
Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I loved this and it broke my heart. Damnation Spring is about a tight-knit community in the redwoods, loggers who work and live in something close to a company town, going back multiple generations. The community has always done things a certain way, but now it’s 1977. California wants to start protecting its forests. There aren’t very many old-growth redwoods left. The government and private companies are spraying herbicides from helicopters and insisting that it’s safe. But a huge number of women in this tiny rural town have experienced repeated miscarriages and had babies with life threatening birth defects. The children get constant bloody noses. Mudslides are getting more violent as the roots holding the earth in place are disturbed, destroying roads and homes. A lot of these families are loyal to the logging company that has supported them and their families for decades; they’re stuck in their ways and insist that life can go on the same as it has been, but some are more skeptical: Is their way of life really that stable, that secure, after all?
I really loved the point of view this story took. Usually stories like this are told from the perspective of heroic environmentalists but in this case, it’s from the loggers’ and their families. It’s heartbreaking to read through a modern lens, knowing everything we know now about pesticides and deforestation, but these characters don’t know any better. How could they? Logging has been sustaining them for nearly a hundred years and the government says the sprays are safe, why would things all of a sudden change now? You really feel for them. They frustrate you, but dammit, you love them and you want things to work out for them, even if technically they’re on the wrong side of science and of history. This is a rich, human story about hardworking people doing their best in a changing landscape.
I really loved the point of view this story took. Usually stories like this are told from the perspective of heroic environmentalists but in this case, it’s from the loggers’ and their families. It’s heartbreaking to read through a modern lens, knowing everything we know now about pesticides and deforestation, but these characters don’t know any better. How could they? Logging has been sustaining them for nearly a hundred years and the government says the sprays are safe, why would things all of a sudden change now? You really feel for them. They frustrate you, but dammit, you love them and you want things to work out for them, even if technically they’re on the wrong side of science and of history. This is a rich, human story about hardworking people doing their best in a changing landscape.