A Look Back At James Dickey's Novel "Deliverance"

As Steve King at todayinliterature.com notes, it was on this day in 1970 that James Dickey's novel Deliverance was published.

Although primarily a poet -- thirty collections by the time of his death in 1997, a National Book Award in 1965 for Buckdancer's Choice -- Dickey's first novel was a best-seller when it appeared, and the movie two years later (Dickey wrote the script and played the Sheriff) was a box-office hit. The tale of four suburb-dwellers on a manly descent into camping nightmare -- the human-nature horrors include rape and murder -- is described as "an allegory of fear and survival" and "a Heart of Darkness for our time" by the critics.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.todayinliterature.com/today.asp?Search_Date=3/28/2014

 

Note: I enjoyed James Dickey's novel and I enjoyed John Boorman's film as well. It was Burt Reynold's finest film.