Ash Davidson

This is a beautifully written gut-wrenching story. It's set in the late 1970's in a logging town. It's about a family who's way of life is starting to drastically change. The hillsides are sliding, the water is muddier than ever with less fish and they are running out of good wood to cut. Everyone can see the hillsides changing but no one is adding anything else up. They aren't counting the birth defects, the strange cancers or the miscarriages. They are justing making their living, pushing through one day at a time, many like their dads and moms before them. It's a little peak into our history - a time when earning a living by logging was a whole town's way of life.

The story is so engrossing, right from the beginning. You are wrapped up in the little town, learning most of the neighbors quickly. The rhythm of their day is easy to slide in to, the 4 am wake up, the kids all tumbling together to play and the way they all lean on each other to ease their burdens. But you can see the cracks and you can feel that you're an outsider, peaking in at the moment it's all starting to happen.

I loved the characters, the story, the town. I raged as they raged, I cried as they cried, and I loved every page of this story (even when it broke my heart). I will definitely look for more from this author. I might even re-read this one (something I rarely rarely do!)

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.… (more)

Set in 1977 and 1978 in the Redwoods area of northern California, the story follows a family that is the latest generation of loggers. Rich has been a ‘topper’ for a logging company for 30 years. He and Colleen have one son, Chub, who is 5 years old. Colleen has recently given birth to a stillborn child, the last of 8 miscarriages. The marriage is a little strained as she wants to try again, and he is reluctant. When ‘tree huggers’ show up wanting to stop the clear-cutting, and biologists show up testing the water to prove the DDT spraying that the company is doing is causing the high baby death and deformity rate and high cancer rate things are ripe for conflict. Chapters are presented from the viewpoint of all three family members. This story starts off slowly with a lot of information on the logging and personal tragedies before all the groups are on the scene and things pick up. Learned a lot about this time in history. Just about everyone has faults and there are some blatantly bad characters. Worth the read but not a favorite.… (more)

Book Loft rec

This was such a good book. It started out slow - Colleen has just lost her baby at 5 months (?) pregnant. She wants to try again, and Rich wants her to stop risking her health. Rich has gone ahead and put their savings toward a piece of land he has always wanted - and he hasn’t told her or put her name on the loan.

There’s a lot about logging - especially how dangerous it is. Rich’s dad was a logger and died early in Rich’s life. A close friend Lark took over as a father figure, and he is crippled in a logging accident.

Colleen had a boyfriend - part native Daniel, who has returned to the area to study the effects of logging (and the spraying that’s part of it) on the water and the fish. The old growth trees attract attention from ‘hippies’ who stage protests. A skull is found on about-to-be-logged land that halts all work for a search and a hearing.

So there’s that conflict. The loggers who want to protect their livelihood. The patriarchal lumber company. The protesters. And then the babies born with birth defects and the miscarriages. The deformed deer fetuses found in the woods. Bees and flowers killed by the spraying. Nosebleeds all the time.

Rich and Colleen come back together but the trouble outside their marriage starts - which side are you on? The land Rich owns can only be logged when the adjacent property is logged - until then it brings in nothing to pay off the mortgage. But there are landslides after roads are cut, and the hillsides are cleared. The tide begins to turn although the violence gets worse.

There isn’t a solution or a cure. The ending is sad. There are a lot of characters, and a lot of side stories, and it’s all very vivid.… (more)