Forest Blood

After a slow start, lingering too long on the history and description of the small timber town of Lewis Falls, Ore., Golden's debut novel settles into a boilerplate exhibit of the politically charged conflict between loggers, environmentalists and big business. Most of the story is told in flashback by 43-year-old lifelong logger John Gilliam, who is paralyzed below the waist after the chain of his saw hits a hidden spike and bullwhips around his body, slicing through muscle to his second lumbar vertebra. He then becomes the sacrificial symbol of the logging controversy; the media and community use his tragedy for their own disparate agendas. Meanwhile, Gilliam ruminates on the idiocies of fame. The cluttered plot hinges on ascertaining the identity and motive of the saboteur: who spiked the tree and who set fire to the food co-op that had been founded by '60s California granola groups? At the core of the story is the lifetime friendship among Gilliam, Steve Raines (son of the current owner of the mill) and Holly Burgess, valedictorian of their tiny high school class who left town for Stanford, returning as an activist until she learns the truth about her group's organizer. Holly's epilogue ties up loose ends once all the culprits are revealed through overheard conversations and confessions. Despite the author's well-meaning intention to expose the plight of the timber industry and his use of details from his experience as forest worker, environmental policy adviser and county commissioner, the novel's plodding pace and cheerless characters do not tap the dramatic potential of its subject. (Feb.)