James Dickey’s Leesburg: The House of Deliverance

by Mac Carey
The small historic town of Leesburg Virginia certainly doesn't bring forth my atavistic desires and primordial rage, even less so does the stately Glenfiddich house, situated in the middle of the sprawling antebellum lawns and pillared front porches of North King Street. But from 1966-1968, the town, and the small room on the second story above the entranceway, served as the surroundings for James Dickey while he wrote his 1970 masterpiece about man's darker instincts, Deliverance.
Growing up in Leesburg in the past twenty years, I've seen many changes. I've witnessed the once far...