Deliverance (novel)
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''Deliverance'' (1970) is the
debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...
of American writer
James Dickey James Lafayette Dickey (February 2, 1923 January 19, 1997) was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth United States Poet Laureate in 1966. He also received the Order of the South award. Dickey is best known for his no ...
, who had previously published poetry. It was adapted into the 1972 film of the same name directed by
John Boorman Sir John Boorman (; born 18 January 1933) is a British film director, best known for feature films such as ''Point Blank'' (1967), ''Hell in the Pacific'' (1968), ''Deliverance'' (1972), ''Zardoz'' (1974), '' Exorcist II: The Heretic'' (1977), ...
. In 1998, the editors of the
Modern Library The Modern Library is an American book publishing imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Modern Library became an ...
selected ''Deliverance'' as #42 on their list of the 100 best 20th-Century novels. In 2005, the novel was included on ''Time'' magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923.


Plot

Narrated in the first person by Ed Gentry, a
graphic artist A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, p ...
and one of the four main characters, the novel opens with him and three friends, all middle-aged men who live in a large city in Georgia, planning a weekend
canoe A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle. In British English, the term ...
trip down the fictional Cahulawassee River in the northwest Georgia wilderness. It's a last chance to travel on this wild river, which is scheduled to be dammed to create a reservoir and generate hydropower. Besides Ed, the protagonists are insurance salesman Bobby Trippe, soft drink executive Drew Ballinger, and landlord Lewis Medlock, a physically fit outdoorsman who has promoted the canoe trip. The men drive into the mountains with two canoes. At a gas station in a mountain hamlet, Drew sees a local albino boy playing a banjo. He gets out his own guitar and plays a
duet A duet is a musical composition for two performers in which the performers have equal importance to the piece, often a composition involving two singers or two pianists. It differs from a harmony, as the performers take turns performing a solo ...
with the boy, who appears to be intellectually disabled, maybe
inbred Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely related genetically. By analogy, the term is used in human reproduction, but more commonly refers to the genetic disorders and o ...
, but with great musical skills. The men arrange with local mechanics, the Griner brothers, to drive the foursome's cars to the fictitious town of Aintry, where the canoe voyage is scheduled to end two days later. The visitors put their canoes in the river and begin their journey. After they shoot some initial
rapids Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Rapids are hydrological features between a ''run'' (a smoothly flowing part of a stream) and a ''cascade''. ...
and evening approaches, Ed reflects on the isolation into which the group has now voyaged. The following morning, Ed awakes early and goes hunting with his
bow and arrow The bow and arrow is a ranged weapon system consisting of an elastic launching device (bow) and long-shafted projectiles ( arrows). Humans used bows and arrows for hunting and aggression long before recorded history, and the practice was comm ...
. Sighting a deer, he shoots but misses because he loses his nerve at the last moment. Lewis is unimpressed, and Ed gets annoyed at his survivalist mentality. After breaking camp, Ed and Bobby set out in one canoe slightly ahead of Lewis and Drew. Since the night in camp, Bobby has changed his mind about the trip. He is frustrated by Lewis' leadership, so Ed takes him as a canoe partner to keep the two apart. Sometime that afternoon, Bobby and Ed pull the canoe over to take a break and let Lewis and Drew catch up after a small separation. As they are waiting, two men, one of them carrying a
shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small p ...
, step out of the woods. After a tense conversation these men attack Ed and Bobby. The men force them a bit further into the woods, Ed is tied to a tree by his neck and cut with his own
knife A knife ( : knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidenced ...
; then the two men order Bobby to strip from the waist down. The two men force Bobby to bend over a log, and the older man rapes him. The men then untie Ed, and the younger makes Ed kneel, about to force Ed to perform
fellatio Fellatio (also known as fellation, and in slang as blowjob, BJ, giving head, or sucking off) is an oral sex act involving a person stimulating the penis of another person by using the mouth, throat, or both. Oral stimulation of the scrotum may ...
on him. Lewis, hidden in the woods, fatally shoots Bobby's assailant with an arrow as the shotgun is handed off from the younger man to the older. Ed snatches the gun from the shot man after he falls, while the other flees into the woods. The city men argue about what to do. Lewis wants to bury the body, arguing that if they inform the police, they might be convicted by a jury consisting of the dead man's relatives. Drew wants to turn the body over to police in Aintry. Bobby is ashamed and furious about his assault, and agrees with Lewis on trying to hide the body. Ed also sides with Lewis. The men bury the body and return to their canoes, with Ed and Drew teamed up again. That evening they enter a high gorge with powerful rapids. Drew falls out of one canoe and is pulled downriver, both canoes are capsized, and Lewis breaks his leg on the rocks. His wooden canoe breaks up in the rapids. Lewis says that Drew was shot by the escaped mountain man. Ed is less certain, but realizes that if the mountain man is at the top of the gorge, he can shoot each of them. He decides to climb up the gorge to kill the mountain man with his bow and arrow. Ed briefs Bobby about taking Lewis downriver in the remaining canoe at first light in order to avoid being shot. Ed climbs to the top of the gorge, and hides to await the rifleman. Early the following morning, a man appears and Ed shoots him when he appears to see the traveler. The rifleman fires, missing Ed, but knocking him from the tree. Ed is gored by one of his own arrows on landing. He tracks the rifleman and finds him dead nearby. He returns the body to the top of the cliff. As he does, he sees the canoe with Lewis and Bobby moving out into the river in the full light. Ed tries to identify the body, to see if the man was connected to the previous attack on Bobby. However Ed has been continually having homicidal thoughts about killing Bobby, fantasising about shooting him with the dead man's rifle, or stabbing him with a knife and eviscerating his innards and genitalia, and he reflects this desire to kill him in his harsh rebukes towards the fat useless country club-dwelling Bobby. Ed tries to lower the body to the riverbank, but it lands on rocks, destroying the face. Bobby cannot identify him. The men never know if Ed has killed an attacker or an unrelated hunter at the top of the gorge. The pair weight and sink the corpse, along with other evidence. Ed, Bobby, and the severely injured Lewis then continue the journey in the remaining canoe. Below the gorge, they find Drew's body. Lewis confirms that he was shot by a rifle bullet. Ed and Bobby sink Drew's body in the river to hide the evidence of any crime. Some time later, the men reach Aintry, where they explain that they suffered a canoeing accident at a falls upriver and that their friend Drew must have
drowned Drowning is a type of suffocation induced by the submersion of the mouth and nose in a liquid. Most instances of fatal drowning occur alone or in situations where others present are either unaware of the victim's situation or unable to offer as ...
. Ed and Bobby believe they have their story straight—Lewis feigns having few memories of the "accident" and thereby escapes questioning—but they soon learn that fragments of their demolished wooden canoe were recovered in Aintry a full day ahead of when they claim their accident occurred. They modify their story to reconcile this. They claim to have piled all four men into the remaining aluminum canoe, which suffered an accident wherein Drew was lost and assumed drowned. The deputy sheriff grows highly suspicious of them and tells the sheriff that his brother-in-law has been missing since the weekend. He thinks the strangers have something to do with it. After the sheriff and his men drag the river searching for Drew's body, the sheriff lets the threesome depart, warning them not to return to Aintry. Ed returns to city life, feeling changed by the violent events and memories of the river. Dammed, it exists only in his mind. He occasionally sees Bobby but the latter moves to Hawaii. Ed and his wife later buy a cabin on another "dammed lake," and Lewis buys a neighboring cottage. Lewis is marked by a limp but the two city men return outwardly to their lives.


Reception

''
Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...
'' wrote that "James Dickey's first novel is an ambitious tale of adventure in which character is tested, quite literally, if preposterously, through action."


Adaptations

The book was adapted as a 1972 film of the same name directed by
John Boorman Sir John Boorman (; born 18 January 1933) is a British film director, best known for feature films such as ''Point Blank'' (1967), ''Hell in the Pacific'' (1968), ''Deliverance'' (1972), ''Zardoz'' (1974), '' Exorcist II: The Heretic'' (1977), ...
. It starred
Burt Reynolds Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018) was an American actor, considered a sex symbol and icon of 1970s American popular culture. Reynolds first rose to prominence when he starred in television series such as ' ...
and
Jon Voight Jonathan Vincent Voight (; born December 29, 1938) is an American actor. He came to prominence in the late 1960s with his Academy Award–nominated performance as Joe Buck, a would-be gigolo, in ''Midnight Cowboy'' (1969). During the 1970s, he ...
.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Deliverance (Novel) 1970 American novels American novels adapted into films English-language novels Novels set in Appalachia Novels set in Georgia (U.S. state) Houghton Mifflin books Novels about rape