A River in Egypt

Faber 90th Stories brings together some of our finest short stories, past, present and future.

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'.

About the Author

David Means's second collection of stories, Assorted Fire Events, earned the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction, and his third, The Secret Goldfish, was shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize. His fourth, The Spot, was selected as a 2010 Notable Book by the New York Times.

His first novel, Hystopia, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His most recent collection of short stories, Instructions for a Funeral was published by Faber in 2019. Means's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and Esquire among other publications. He lives in Nyack, New York, and teaches at Vassar College.