DAMNATION SPRING by Ash Davidson

I expect an emotional response to a good book, but this novel just made me angry.  This is the second book I’ve read lately in which a man hides a huge financial fiasco from his wife.  The biggest problem, however, is that all of the characters seem to lack common sense.  It takes place in 1977, but even then, surely people knew that herbicides are not harmless, especially in their water supply.  The Erin Brockovich case didn’t happen until the early 1990s, but, hey, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring came out in 1962.  I just can’t fathom these people’s cluelessness, particularly after multiple miscarriages, stillborn babies, birth defects, and nosebleeds.  The book takes place in a redwood logging community, and I get that their livelihoods depend on destroying the environment, but when this destruction is the source of their own suffering, I would think that they would wake up.  Instead, their frustration just leads to violence and vengeance against the few among them who want to put a stop to the spraying of underbrush with a chemical related to Agent Orange.  Even the PhD who comes to run lab tests on the water supply is no saint.  He fuels conflict within the community, but most of their problems are self-induced.  This novel is very dark and just keeps getting darker, for both the people and the trees.