The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Davidson, Ash. Damnation Spring. Scribner, 2021.

Ash Davidson’s third person omniscient narrative, Damnation Spring, follows the lives of the Gunderson family as they live and work in rural California during 1977 and 1978. At the outset of the novel, in “Summer 1977”, Rich purchased a track of land called 24-7 Ridge. He believed that he could harvest the forest’s timber and secure a financially stable future for his family. He did not tell his wife, Colleen, about the purchase because he knew she would be disappointed that he used the money, that they saved for a new baby, on the property. Colleen was still grieving the loss of her last pregnancy, but she wanted to try for another child. She believed that if she got pregnant again, she could sooth the grief of losing her daughter during the second trimester. At the drugstore, Colleen ran into Daniel, her old classmate and boyfriend. He explained that he returned to the small town to study the water quality and silt load in Damnation Spring. He believed that the herbicides, that Sanderson and the government were spraying, had leached into the river and were causing environmental damage.

Colleen struggled with loneliness when Chub started school. When she was driving by the river road, she ran into Daniel again and they slept together in the field. She felt guilty for her infidelity, but she knew that Rich would not be physically intimate with her. Later on, Daniel showed up at the Gunderson’s home to ask them to sign a petition. He wanted the community members to join the environmentalist cause but Rich knew that he had to side with the logging company in order to maintain his job and ensure future access to 24-7 Ridge. Colleen was frustrated when she learned that her husband bought the expensive property without telling her. She decided that it was justifiable for her to work with Daniel and began secretly collecting samples of the tap water for him to test.

At the forestry board hearing, in “Winter 1977-1978”, the community members supported the Sanderson company’s right to log Damnation Grove. While the majority of the citizens aligned with the company, Daniel, his uncle, George Bywater, and Helen Yancy diverged from the popular sentiment. Colleen was mortified when Daniel publicly singled her out to exemplify the effects of herbicide on fertility. Afterward, the other community members would not speak with her and considered her a threat to the logging industry’s survival. Rich suspected that the relationship between Colleen and Daniel had been intimate in the recent past and confronted Colleen. She admitted that she slept with him once since his return and Rich smashed the jars of sample water, that he found in the kitchen cabinet. While he left the house in anger, Rich realized that he was also at fault for the strain in his marriage; he knew that he had been physically and emotionally distant and promised Colleen that he would stop keeping her at a distance.

In “Spring 1978”, Rich learned that Merle sold off Damnation Grove to the national parks service. He was livid that the executive of Sanderson had betrayed the community, but he realized that Merle’s actions had always been dictated by self-interest and money. Shortly after, when Rich went to the bank, he learned that Lark had paid off his debt in full, prior to his death. Rich was elated and tried to call Colleen, but she did not answer. On the way home, the road was slick with runoff water and his vehicle careened into the river. Colleen was unsure how she would survive without Rich, but she learned that she had to persevere through her grief to support Chub and her new baby.