Book of The Month discussion

An epic, immersive debut, Damnation Spring is the deeply human story of a Pacific Northwest logging town wrenched in two by a mystery that threatens to derail its way of life.

For generations, Rich Gundersen’s family has chopped a livelihood out of the redwood forest along California’s rugged coast. Now Rich and his wife, Colleen, are raising their own young son near Damnation Grove, a swath of ancient redwoods on which Rich’s employer, Sanderson Timber Co., plans to make a killing. In 1977, with most of the forest cleared or protected, a grove like Damnation—and beyond it 24-7 Ridge—is a logger’s dream.

It’s dangerous work. Rich has already lived decades longer than his father, killed on the job. Rich wants better for his son, Chub, so when the opportunity arises to buy 24-7 Ridge—costing them all the savings they’ve squirreled away for their growing family—he grabs it, unbeknownst to Colleen. Because the reality is their family isn’t growing; Colleen has lost several pregnancies. And she isn’t alone. As a midwife, Colleen has seen it with her own eyes.

For decades, the herbicides the logging company uses were considered harmless. But Colleen is no longer so sure. What if these miscarriages aren’t isolated strokes of bad luck? As mudslides take out clear-cut hillsides and salmon vanish from creeks, her search for answers threatens to unravel not just Rich’s plans for the 24-7, but their marriage too, dividing a town that lives and dies on timber along the way.

Told from the perspectives of Rich, Colleen, and Chub, in prose as clear as a spring-fed creek, this intimate, compassionate portrait of a community clinging to a vanishing way of life amid the perils of environmental degradation makes Damnation Spring an essential novel for our time

I added this book to my selection because I live in the PNW; its nature is part of my soul. My heart breaks over climate issues because we see it here. Today our air is smokey due to wild fires in part due to a prolong draught. Saving old growth from the sins of man is relevant to my life. So of course I need to read this book. Why did you pick this book?

You'll have to let me know how it is. I didn't get it but I was intrigued.

I immediately snapped this one up - it became available just a few days after I hiked in the Del Norte Redwoods & seemed completely up my alley. I was blown away by it, honestly. Best novel I’ve read in a long time!

Such a wonderful and interesting book. It is a bit like Book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and is dedicated to a global environmental issue that affects the entire ecosystem as a whole. It also describes and analyzes the side effects of the use of chemicals in agriculture and industry that destroy organic life as well as poison the inorganic parts of the world. I learned about it on https://envrexperts.com/free-essays/e... when I was analyzing student essays. There, a description of the book is presented in more detail and its full analysis is described. The book consists of seventeen chapters, each of which describes the side effects of pesticides and insecticides that affect people, animals and plants, as well as water, soil and the atmosphere. I recommend reading it to anyone who cares about our planet and its health.