Ash Davidson

Ash Davidson is the author of the national bestseller Damnation Spring, which was named a best book of 2021 by Newsweek, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Damnation Spring is the spring that feeds the creek that the aging logger at the heart of the novel, Rich Gundersen, and his young wife, Colleen, rely on for water, which becomes a major source of tension in their marriage after Colleen starts to suspect it’s poisoning them. It’s a link to Damnation Grove, the stand of ancient redwoods on which Rich’s employer plans to make a killing, and the center of a violent conflict that divides their tight-knit timber town.

It’s also a season, in a community very much at the mercy of the seasons. And it conjures up a biblical notion of being trapped, of bringing about your own ruin, which speaks to the situation Rich and Colleen find themselves in, caught between making a living and keeping their family safe.

What's in a name?

I chose names that fit the characters’ personalities–Rich because he’s solid and steady, and there was strength in that name. Of course, in writing, you have the luxury of getting to know the person before committing to a name, unlike naming a baby first and then watching the personality grow in. Certain characters like Daniel, the fish biologist, changed names three or four times as I got to know them better.

One exception is Eugene and Enid’s youngest, Alsea, who is named in honor of a small community in rural Oregon where a schoolteacher documented a series of miscarriages local women suspected might be linked to herbicide spraying, which eventually led to the banning of the chemical defoliant 2,4,5-T.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings. Usually I write the last scene first. The ending serves as a lighthouse. No matter how lost I get, wandering off after a character or a subplot, or down some internet rabbit hole, I can look up and see that light in the distance. Although I rewrote the ending for Damnation Spring six times and the real ending, when I finally found it, completely surprised me. So that method isn’t always foolproof.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I feel like I met them, even though I invented them. We don’t have much in common. But I always tried to see things their way, to understand their reasons, even when I disagreed with them.

The two characters readers have the hardest time with are Rich’s boss, Merle, and Rich’s brother-in-law, Eugene, who is married to Colleen’s sister Enid. Both do some truly despicable things. With Merle, I went and found his wife, Arlette. She’s ill, and she’s vain, and she won’t go to the beauty parlor in her condition, so Merle helps her dye her hair at home. It’s this beautiful moment of tenderness that most people who know him would never suspect him capable of. Of course, I couldn’t use it. It’s a private moment that none of the narrators witnesses, so I took it out. But I left the dye in the beds of his nails, so I’d remember his tenderness. Eugene is hot-tempered and impulsive, often violent, but it’s hard to dislike him when he’s helping his daughter do the exercises to correct her lazy eye. Most people are capable of both good and bad things, and my job as a writer is not to judge them.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I spent a lot of time outside as a kid–picking blackberries, digging holes, getting muddy–and I still try to get out into the national forest near my house every day. I was raised to respect trees as living, but I was also raised going out to cut firewood with my dad so we’d have heat.

In Klamath, my family relied on a creek for drinking water, similar to Rich and Colleen’s setup in the book. I was brought up to think about where my drinking water comes from, and how what happens to the forest affects us and the environment. I think that’s why I’m drawn to stories that have a strong link to the natural world.

Visit Ash Davidson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue