Helpful Score: 2
I related so deeply to this story even though Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson is about the California timber industry and I was raised on a Nebraska farm.
Advice for readers:
1) Prepare for lots of tree talk.
2) Read little about this novel before diving in.
This is the tale of the Gunderson family whose men have toiled in the redwood timber industry for generations, performing difficult and dangerous work. Rich, the current patriarch, and his wife Colleen, are raising their young son Graham (nicknamed Chub) while grieving several miscarriages. Colleen, an amateur midwife, sees other families' devastation when their babies are born with serious medical issues, and then someone from her past comes back to seek answers. When the probable cause points to the region's primary employer, lines are drawn and neighbors take sides.
It took a bit, but I came to care deeply for this group of memorable 'rough around the edges' characters, and I continue to think about them weeks after finishing this 450+ page book. They are brought to life in the full-cast audiobook by veteran narrators CJ Wilson, Rebecca Lowman, Mark Sanderlin, and Candace Thaxton.
Congratulations to the author on this complex debut novel; I'm eager to see what she writes next.
Advice for readers:
1) Prepare for lots of tree talk.
2) Read little about this novel before diving in.
This is the tale of the Gunderson family whose men have toiled in the redwood timber industry for generations, performing difficult and dangerous work. Rich, the current patriarch, and his wife Colleen, are raising their young son Graham (nicknamed Chub) while grieving several miscarriages. Colleen, an amateur midwife, sees other families' devastation when their babies are born with serious medical issues, and then someone from her past comes back to seek answers. When the probable cause points to the region's primary employer, lines are drawn and neighbors take sides.
It took a bit, but I came to care deeply for this group of memorable 'rough around the edges' characters, and I continue to think about them weeks after finishing this 450+ page book. They are brought to life in the full-cast audiobook by veteran narrators CJ Wilson, Rebecca Lowman, Mark Sanderlin, and Candace Thaxton.
Congratulations to the author on this complex debut novel; I'm eager to see what she writes next.
