Dickey's fictional stretch of the Cahulawassee River between Oree and Aintry of Helms County, Georgia, is a thinly veiled version of the Coosawatee River between Ellijay and Carter's Quarters in Georgia's Rabun County. This setting is ideal for the story. The river has multiple levels of significance It is a metaphor for the flow of life, for the lifeblood that flows through veins the way that water threads through a gorge. It represents the passage of time and becomes a character in the novel, with its own particular moments of anger and acts of kindness. It is a mirror of the narrator's subconscious, with bodies buried beneath its surface, and it can be interpreted as a culture on the verge of being sunk by the technology that dams its path. Dickey uses a setting.....
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