Fiction
2021 Scribner
Finished on November 3, 2023
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
Publisher's Blurb:
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. Colleen, desperate to have a second baby, challenges the logging company’s use of herbicides that she believes are responsible for the many miscarriages in the community—including her own. Colleen and Rich find themselves on opposite sides of a budding conflict that threatens the very thing they 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.
I read Damnation Spring in mid-2022 and thought it was outstanding. I enjoyed the story and writing so much that I decided to recommend it to my book group, and we are discussing it later this month. I wish I could say that I loved it as much the second time around, but it didn't pull me in until about halfway in. Maybe it was simply too soon for a full reread. I dropped my original 5-star rating down to 4 stars.
I won't repost my original thoughts about the book, since that review is pretty long, but you can find it here.
I think I tried to read this book at the wrong time as I just couldn't get into it. It makes me sad when that happens and I wish I was good enough to hang onto those books to give them a second chance.
ReplyDeleteHelen, I'm happy to send you my copy if you think you'd like to give it a second chance. If so, drop me an email and I'll get it to you after Thanksgiving sometime.
DeleteYeah I just put this one on my TBR for 2024. It sounds very Northwest-y ... which I like since I lived in Seattle back in the early 1990s. I wonder what your book group will think? I remember my critic friend at The Post raved about the book too when it came out ... so with both of your recommendations I need to get to it. I think rereads are a bit tougher. I don't reread too often but sometimes I'll listen to audios twice during my initial time with the book.
ReplyDeleteSusan, I think you'll enjoy this one quite well. The setting is well-described and the characters (at least the main cast) are the kind you can really come to care about. The writing is very good and at times lyrical. I hope the author is busy writing another novel (this was her debut). Definitely one to watch for.
DeleteI put this on my list after you reviewed it, but haven't gotten to it yet. Sounds like the reread was probably too soon...
ReplyDeleteJoAnn, it might have been too soon for a reread, especially since there's a lot of tension and I already knew the outcome... however, we had a very good discussion at my book club meeting yesterday, so I'm glad it was fresh in my mind.
Delete