''My father was a great poet, a famous novelist, a powerful intellect, and a son of a bitch I hated.'' So Dickey, a respected war reporter, begins his account of the summer he ended a 20-year estrangement from his more famous father, James. His memories of his father's metamorphosis from respected regional poet to good-ol'-boy literary celebrity to squalid alcoholic are unflinching. But the child's anger gives way to the adult's forgiveness. Ultimately, Summer of Deliverance: A Memoir of Father and Son is a painful homage to ''Big Jim'' Dickey and his squandered talent. A
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