Damnation Spring

Well, this is now one of my top books of the year. Equal parts gorgeous and gutting, 𝘋𝘢𝘮𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘚𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 is a sensitive, nuanced portrayal of the logging industry set against the grandeur of the Northern California redwoods in 1977.

First, the facts: The redwoods in these forests were saplings when Christ was born. In the 19th century there were two million acres of redwoods: 95 percent of them were cut down. As one old-timer says, “Two thousand years to grow a forest, a hundred years to fall it.” Trucks bear bumper stickers boasting, “Don’t worry, I hugged it first.”

You’d think that would set up an easy dichotomy: loggers bad, environmentalists good. But there’s nothing easy about it. For every yahoo with a bumper sticker, there’s also a logger with a deep respect for the land. And for the people who depend on timber to live, every tree that’s still standing is food that could go on the table.

Rich Gundersen is a fourth-generation logger. (He now also rivals Jamie Fraser in my affections for favorite literary hero.) It’s backbreaking, dangerous work; his father died in a logging accident when Rich was a boy. So when Rich has a chance to buy a grove of old-growth redwoods that would give his family financial security and ensure a better life for his son, he makes a decision.

But the environmentalists threaten to thwart his plans, and with good reason: Babies are being born with catastrophic birth defects. Rich’s wife, Colleen, has had eight miscarriages. Dead and deformed animals are found where the timber company has been spraying to clear the woods of unwanted growth. Grieving parents want answers, but the company has such a stranglehold on the town that even mentioning the phrase “sustained yield” might mean your cable mysteriously snaps on the job. Retribution is swift and merciless.

Standing beside a 350-foot redwood would be a humbling experience. We would do well to remember our place in the world, and learn to live in harmony with it, or else another kind of retribution will be at hand––one that has been a long time coming.