A River in Egypt

by David Means

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles.

In his masterful story 'A River in Egypt', David Means paints a portrait of a moment. Cavanaugh and his young son are suspended; trapped in what a nurse calls 'the sweat chamber', where the boy will be tested for cystic fibrosis.

Cavanaugh has brought distractions - spasmodic action figures, malformed toy trucks - but they do little to alter the frustration of the sick child screaming, or to alleviate the anxiety of the time spent waiting for 'some exactitude in the form of a diagnosis'.

Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

34 pages, Paperback

Published March 7, 2019

About the author

David Means is an American short story writer and novelist based in Nyack, New York. His stories have appeared in many publications, including Esquire, The New Yorker, and Harper's. They are frequently set in the Midwest or the Rust Belt, or along the Hudson River in New York.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

An assistant art director waits for test results in a hospital to find out if his severely disabled son has cystic fibrosis. David Means takes us through the man’s thoughts on this profoundly stressful experience.

Real cheerer-upper, eh? A River in Egypt was quite a good story. Means gives the reader a vivid snapshot of a day in the life of this poor man and the story is easy to read despite the extra-long sentences - usually they make for some rather laborious re-reading (flashbacks to Joseph Conrad - the horror!).

Still, I can’t shake the impression that this is like an advanced creative writing student’s story, one step up from writing about how grandma’s death made you saaaaad. That said, I don’t know anything about David Means and he might well have experience of the things his story is about, but it all feels self-consciously Literary and abstract, like a thought exercise. A well-written one but not a very moving or memorable one either.

[Paula Mota · Rating 3 out of 5]

"He was crying like a man on a bridge - suspended between two sides of life, trapped in the blunt symbolism of the spans (...)- while his son slept soundly, unburdened now, it seemed, when Cavanaugh looked back at him in the mirror, and afloat on his own slumber. Not at all sick, or diseased, and free from whatever torment the future might offer up."

[Dannii Elle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A River in Egypt involved no rivers and was not, as far as I am aware, set in Egypt (I’m probably missing some deep literary metaphor here). It was, however, largely set inside the sweat box of a hospital and involved the interactions between the father and son who temporarily dwelt there. The father intends to engage his young son, as temperatures rise, with a selection of his favourite toys. This is only a means of distraction for the both of them, as they await the results from his collected sweat that will diagnose him, or not, with cystic fibrosis.

This was a precise little tale - in which Means delivered a series of quirk-turn phrases followed by long, run on, alternate scenarios involving fleeting characters in this family saga - and that really maximised the potential of such a short span of pages. Whilst I did appreciate the style the tale was told in, the narrative itself failed to deliver for me, on the same level. What could have been a harrowing and traumatic tale, as was expected from the subject matter, was only actually so for the last three pages. Those prior to it, whilst engaging, evoked no deeper emotions and I was merely left waiting for the latter to appear.

[Sportyrod · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bite size short story about the moment a father accompanies his child to the ‘sweat room’, to find out whether his son has a terminal illness. The pressure of awaiting the results gets to him, causing an issue. With so much on the line, he reflects on his own actions, along with the reader.

[cristi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Woe to the man whose child is on the verge of a diagnosis"

The man in question is Cavanaugh. A father, standing with his son in a hospital room -- the sweat chamber as the nurse called it. As little Gunner is tested for cystic fibrosis, his father tries to distract him, minute by minute, until he breaks into "a true breaker on the scream scale" and Cavanaugh sees himself forced to cup his hand over the boy's mouth.

This is the scene unfolding as the nurse enters the room, leading to a beautifully penned act of contemplation and introspection by a man "suspended between two sides of life".

The few pages of this short story were enough to convince me of its value. I want more of what this story offered.

[Callum McLaughlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first of the Faber Stories range that sadly didn't work for me. It wasn't bad, per se, but a story about a father's anguish as he awaits a potentially life-changing diagnosis for his young son should have made me feel emotional or tense. Instead, I have to concede that I felt a little bored by its tangential style.

I suppose it's a snapshot of a moment. It explores the idea that illness affects a whole family, and that sometimes ignorance is bliss. It just never gets into the grit of the situation or the characters' mindsets enough to leave any lasting impression beyond the power of its concept.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

So what do you do when you have an hour free - you read through a couple more of the Faber stories in my case (never said I was conventional).

So what of this story - well this is the story of a father facing the disillusionment of life while trying to make sense of the hand he as been dealt. There is a lot more in this little story some of which makes for uncomfortable reading but for me I think it is more about the thought processes that go in the father mind.

There are some interesting mental dialogues in these pages which I realised could be read in a number of ways - why is this interesting well depending on how you read them it shifts the mans mental state and I think this is what intrigues me most about this short story - how re-reading a passage can shift what is presented in subtle but different ways.

[e.]

denial???

[Nik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Faber 90th Anniversary Mini Series #12 of 20

Finished. A thought provoking novella. It is the day in the life of a young child and his father. It follows them both as the son undergoes an hospital investigation. A very difficult time for anyone. The father does not seem to be able to get anything right. However, although the young child is frustrated and upset, the son still loves his Dad and in the end calms everything once home. Very well written. I liked this book and do recommend it

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not super memorable, but a nicely frantic quality to the writing. I've missed reading these little Faber books.

[Gda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lagano neuroticno.

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the thirteenth of the Faber Stories I have read so far, and probably my least favourite.

I have been trying to work out why I didn't engage with the story. Cavanaugh has taken his young son to hospital to be tested for cystic fibrosis. It is a difficult time for both of them. The rucksack of toys that Cavanaugh has brought to keep his son amused has failed to have the right impact, and his son has let out a cry which the father has tried to muffle. A 'record breaker on the scream scale.' A nurse has entered the hot room to find the father with his hand over his son's mouth. It is not a good moment for any of them. There is guilt and suspicion. The son was expecting a new toy, but none was present.

Perhaps Cavanaugh is just not a character that you have much sympathy for. Things are not going well for him. He has been sacked from his job designing scenery and sets for movies. The things he makes are too realistic, too much detail. That part raised my only laugh from this story, as his boss tries to gently let him go from the job, the boss says "We made one wrong move, and I don't want to make another. I'm not casting blame. I'm apportioning fault." I am still trying to work out what the differences might be between these two events.

[Simon Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

34 pages covering a father's thoughts during and after taking his infant son for a sweat test to diagnose Cystic Fibrosis. I really enjoyed this.

I thought Means did a great job of capturing the broad tumult of thoughts that people experience in situations like this - practical considerations (how do I keep my son entertained), interpretations of staff members' facial expressions (my God, they're going to report me to social service because they think I hit him), conflicting thoughts about the potential for diagnosis (relief of certainty versus devastation of prognosis), reflections on own life (how did I get here?)

Fiction is often disappointing reductive in the portrayal of complex thoughts in situations like this: here, the complexity and frequent tangents felt true to life.

It also made me reflect that Cystic Fibrosis was an interesting creative choice, given that the test is reasonably definitive. I often think that patients go through this sort of turmoil with no definitive endpoint, just a balance of probabilities and an expectation that things will clarify themselves with time. That's an order of tumultous complexity further still.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

As he drove, he began to cry, openly and with stifled guffaws, the way a man must cry when he is faced with the future, any future, a good one or a bad one, and after he has sat alone in a room with his child, waiting for sweat to collect so that he may know something about what is to come, some exactitude in the form of a diagnosis; he cried the way a man must cry when he's driving, keeping both hands on the wheel and his eyes wide open through the blur, and he cried the way a man must cry when he is exhausted from being up deep into the night while his boy coughs up almost unbelievable quantities of phlegm, clearly succumbing to a disease process that at that point was indeterminate; he cried for himself as much as for his son, and for the world that was unfolding to his left, an open vista, the gaping mouth of the river, which at that moment was flowing down to the sea, hurrying itself into the heart of New York Harbor.

[Stephen Theaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

An assistant art director, recently fired from what sounds like a terrible science fiction film, tries to keep his son from crying during a test for cystic fibrosis, and a nurse enters the room at a point where the father seems to have lost control. I liked this a lot. I liked the way he read acres of thought into each expression on the nurse's face, it being part of his job to encourage film viewers to read actors' faces in the same way. I also liked the title: it's not about a river in Egypt, but it is about denial.

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book describes the ordeal of a few hours. A man in a sweat chamber with his son, trying to keep him occupied while enough sweat is collected to diagnose what may or may not be wrong with the child. The descriptions were gripping, but somewhere one is left wondering if this is a short story or a submission for a creative writing class. Will I read David Means after this one- most unlikely.

[Evelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a short story about a father coping with illness in a spoiled child who is prone to tantrums. It is set during a diagnostic test and contains all the elements to illustrate these characteristics and create a melodrama. Unfortunately it doesn’t work as the characters are unsympathetic, and the story itself is rather trite.

[Carrie Blythe · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.50 stars

[Lee Peckover · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad, lonely and quite bleak. You feel like you're waiting alongside this father for his child's hospital results. It is effective, but it isn't particularly enjoyable.

[Rogue Male · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10

[manel queiroz]

boring and flat… also didn’t like the long sentences and the pretentious, unemotional mood.

[Paris Chadwick · Rating 2 out of 5]

The ideas in this focuses around terminal illness in children which was super emotionally confronting from the perspective we were given

[Mariana ★ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short and sweet story of a semi unlikeable man’s battle with the truth.
I enjoyed the exploration of masculinity and projection, yet felt it fell short of being something I would reach for again.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

soft, sympathetic, gentle, a sad little vignette. Didn’t think the writing was perfect but the concept really pulled on my heart strings

[Jacobcerisgandy]

9/20

Need to read more, as always. This was good to come back to. I really like how contained this is. Reminds me how to tell a good story.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 2010 piece about a father and his son awaiting a cystic fibrosis diagnosis. This story highlights the anxiety involved with confirming an unideal diagnosis, and the way that anxiety is complicated by the fact that there's also relief to be found in the moments of not-knowing. There's a wonderful nuance to the complication of emotion in such a situation.

But unfortunately, though I appreciate the concept, this story just wasn't for me. I had a bit of difficulty with the writing style, which tends toward interrupting itself and doubling back in ways that had me occasionally rereading passages to decipher what, exactly, was going on. Then there was the issue of the narration, which focuses entirely on the mind of the father, who projects the thoughts and feelings of other characters. I found it difficult to know whether to trust his assumptions.

But I did feel some of the anxiety described and was convinced to dread the next appointment along with the rest of this family by the story's end, so I cannot say it was entirely ineffectual.