Damnation Spring

Damnation Spring’s lush setting is a huge part of the novel, and it is clear Davidson is as awestruck by the towering redwoods. Davidson grew up in redwood country, but only because the fights she depicts in her novel were won by the conservationists her loggers deride as “hippies,” “tree huggers,” and “longhairs.” Otherwise, those stunning trees, “…redwoods older than the United States of America, saplings when Christ was born” (20), would have been lost to rapacious logging companies like Sanderson. Davidson puts readers in the middle of the struggle to preserve America’s natural heritage and protect its biodiversity. While she grants the issue its due complexity, depicting the trade-off between protecting the environment and providing a community jobs, she leads readers to a point where the fabled 24-7 Ridge appears to be in safe hands. Chub is a different breed than his father, and Davidson hints that he will not simply grow up a logger and chop down the redwoods. When Rich asks him what he would like to be when he grows up, Chub answers, “A carver” (407). His relationship to the forest is different and augurs well for the trees he and Colleen inherit.