With a staccato prose that mirrors the clipped speech of her characters, Ash Davidson drops readers into a vanishing world on the brink of transformation. What lies ahead for the small northern California timber community near Damnation Grove is uncertain --- either destruction due to continued logging, overfishing and pollution, or a move toward a safer and more sustainable future. DAMNATION SPRING is Davidson’s first novel, and it effectively captures a time of tension and uncertainty and the people whose lives hang in the balance.

"The possibility for violence and heartbreak is on every page. Yet the tender hearts of the characters are never eclipsed by plot devices, resulting in a well-balanced, affecting and provocative novel."

Rich Gundersen is a fourth-generation logger. In his early 50s, he has lived longer than most of the men in his family and many who do his dangerous job. Like his father before him, Rich has dreamed of owning the land called 24-7 Ridge, home to a massive tree and much-unlogged forest. When presented with an opportunity to purchase the land and break away from Sanderson Timber Co. in order to work for himself, he takes it, but not without doubt and secrecy.

Rich doesn’t tell his wife Colleen, a local midwife, because they had been saving their money to expand their family and their home. However, Colleen has had almost a dozen miscarriages, some of which he doesn’t even know about, before and after the birth of their five-year-old son, Chub. She yearns for another child, but Rich doesn’t want any more heartache and loss.

As Rich keeps an eye on Sanderson’s holdings, state park negotiations and his bank account, Colleen’s ex-boyfriend returns to town with environmental news, but few are willing to listen to him. The locals don’t want to hear what Daniel has to say about how the herbicides are poisoning them, from nose bleeds to birth defects, let alone collect water samples for him to test. For Colleen, Daniel brings back memories that she has long suppressed and concerns that she didn’t realize she had. Soon she and Rich are keeping secrets from each other.

The damage done by generations to the forest and waters with the wanton use of chemicals becomes more and more apparent and horrific. These conflicts --- over land, lifestyle, health and ideology --- turn violent, and the changes to the landscape and the people and animals who live on it can no longer be ignored. Colleen and Rich face these challenges alone and together, all the while chasing their dreams of prosperity, autonomy, fertility and contentment.

Davidson taps into many of the themes found in great American storytelling, and this impressive debut heralds her arrival as a writer to pay close attention to. With constant rising tension, simmering anger and a palpable sense of fear, DAMNATION SPRING reveals for readers a fraught time and place that foretells the environmental crisis we are wrestling with today. Davidson’s story is compelling from the start, but her writing grows more natural and easy even as the tale becomes more dramatic and taut. The possibility for violence and heartbreak is on every page. Yet the tender hearts of the characters are never eclipsed by plot devices, resulting in a well-balanced, affecting and provocative novel.