Deliverance

James Dickey’s classic novel Deliverance, originally published on September 10, 1994, by Delta, takes readers into the heart of Georgia’s rugged wilderness. The story follows four men who set out on a canoe trip down one of the state’s most remote and challenging white-water rivers, where they encounter both the exhilaration and peril of nature. In the thunderous roar of the river and its echoing canyons, these urbanites discover an unexpected freedom and an unparalleled thrill.

However, their idyllic journey takes a shocking turn when one man is violently abducted by a group of hillbillies, plunging the others into a desperate fight for survival. The novel masterfully captures the primal struggle between humans and nature, as well as the psychological turmoil that ensues during this harrowing experience.

“You’re hooked, you feel every cut, grope up every cliff, swallow water with every spill of the canoe, sweat with every draw of the bowstring. Wholly absorbing [and] dramatic.” —Harper’s Magazine

Praise for Deliverance:

• “Once read, never forgotten.” —Newport News Daily Press
• A tour de force. How a man acts when shot by an arrow, what it feels like to scale a cliff or to capsize, the ironic psychology of fear: these things are conveyed with remarkable descriptive writing.” —The New Republic