62 pages • 2 hours read
Damnation Spring
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BetaNovember 22-November 28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Fall 1977
November 22 Summary
Chub finds himself stranded at school, waiting for a lift along with Luke. His mother Helen is in ill-health after the complications surrounding the birth of the baby who would have been Luke’s younger sibling. The sore subject has made Luke the target of bullies at school. Chub does his best to reassure him that his mother isn’t going to die. Neither Rich nor Luke’s ride appear, so Gail Porter scoops the children into her car to take them home.
At the time, Colleen is delivering a casserole to Helen and Carl, who sprays for Sanderson. She is surprised to find Daniel leaving the house as she arrives. Gail Porter arrives and drops off both Chub and Luke. Colleen is surprised to see Chub; it is not like Rich to forget to pick him up.
Inside, Carl reveals Daniel tried to get the pair to sign his petition. Carl admits he sprayed near the house during Helen’s pregnancy and even caught her with the herbicide once. But Carl remains skeptical of Daniel’s motives: “Guy cares more about fish than people,” he tells Colleen. “Kill a town to save some trees? Something wrong with that picture” (215).
Despite her loss, Helen tells Colleen she and Carl won’t be signing Daniel’s petition, “If anybody asks” (216).
Rich dislocated his shoulder at work after spotting three dead deer from a tree, which is why he forgot Chub. After patching himself up, he and the rest of the crew find themselves held up by protesters. It is the last day of the logging season and they are out in force. Some of the crew scuffle with the demonstrators blocking the road. Rich returns home to ice his injured arm.
While he sleeps off his pain, Colleen collects a first sample of their tap water for Daniel.
November 23 Summary
Colleen tries to find out how much Rich owes the bank but feels humiliated when the teller tells her to ask him herself.
November 24 Summary
It is the company Thanksgiving party. As the women prepare the community center, they gossip about recent goings-on. Gail Porter swears it was the spraying that killed off her bees. The arrival of the men quickly cuts off the conversation. Merle pontificates from the top table, and soon everyone is digging into their free meal. Merle promises to make poachers and protesters alike pay for their interference.
As the meal winds down, Merle finds Rich and tells him to come by his house on Monday. On the way home, Rich confesses to Colleen how much he paid for the ridge. Colleen frets about the harvest, but Rich is adamant that his plan, so reliant on Sanderson, will work out. At home, Chub is thirsty again. Rich serves him a glass of milk.
November 28 Summary
At Merle’s, the Sanderson boss claims the sprays are safe, denounces Daniel, and accuses him of planting the skulls that halted the harvest at Damnation Grove. He also all but gives Rich an ultimatum, demanding his loyalty over the spraying issue. Merle tells him, “We need to know you’re with us. No matter what” (233). The forestry board is set to hold a hearing in February, before it gives the go-ahead for the return of loggers to Damnation Grove. Merle warns Rich that the roads he needs will be jeopardized, unless he comes out publicly at the hearing and backs Sanderson. Rich promises to think about it, worried what Colleen might say. Merle warns him, “Don’t think too long now, Rich” (234).
November 22-November 28 Analysis
The logging season ends, but the polarization of the community only deepens. Chub’s relationship with Luke adds a layer of pathos to how the division is creeping in, affecting not only the adults but the innocent kids, who will be caught in the middle. It is worth noting as well that readers again see Chub as a very different child from his cousin, Wyatt. Unlike Wyatt, Chub has inherited kindness and empathy from his parents.
Luke’s parents, however, find themselves in a difficult situation. Carl’s skepticism about his own spraying is revealing. In his questioning of Daniel’s motives, he also sets out the hard question to which the environmentalists have no answers—at least not in the confines of this novel: how else can the community support itself economically, without logging. As short-sighted as that seems when set against the reality of dead infants, it is a legitimate question that scares the men and women who make their living working for Sanderson or the other businesses that rely on the logging industry.
That reliance makes the logging industry all-powerful, and Merle doesn’t hesitate to flex his muscles in his dealings with Rich. His need for Sanderson roads pushes him deeper into his dealings with Merle and he faces a new dilemma: stand up for his boss at the public hearing, or face ruin. Davidson presents her character with a moral test. As per Carl’s summation of the situation, it is not always clear what the “right” thing is, even if many who are reading this novel 40 years after it is set will see the need to protect the environment as paramount.
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