Deliverance by James Dickey

4 Stars

 

A weekend adventure for four middle-aged suburbanites quickly turns sour when a couple of strangers interrupt their canoe trip . . .

With Spring just around the corner and the rumblings of “float trips” already being overheard in my corner of Redneckville, USA, I figured it was prime time to brush up on my camping knowledge so I can inform people what to truly expect on their weekend excursions.

 

Even if you are like me and have never watched the film version of Deliverance, I bet a lot of you are familiar enough with a certain iconic scene that when you hear a particular little ditty.
 

you immediately get a shiver down your spine.

Although I kind of knew what was going to happen, I still was going

and then was terrified at what could possibly happen next because there was a lot of book left. And what a lot of book there was. An edge-of-your-seat read that left me feeling like I might have burned a few thousand calories with all of the nervous knee bouncing I was doing. This book was so much more than the “one scene”. The ultimate tale of how far will a person go in order to survive that was written beautifully (I know that sounds strange when the book I’m talking about is Deliverance, but it really was), with honest, flawed characters, non-stop action and great dialogue. It’s easy to see why this made the cut for the “100 Modern Classics” list.