I read this book because I enjoyed another book, Whoredom in Kimmage, by the same author. This one, though very different, is every bit as excellent. I have done business in several developing countries, including Egypt, and I found Mahoney extremely well informed. Her descriptions are surprisingly on the mark for a person who only spent a total of three months in the country. The book is full of history, detail, and fascinating information about the Egyptians and their culture. The writing is beautiful. It's also very colorful and funny. But for me, the most moving part of the book is the story that lies at its heart: the tender and mutually respectful friendship the author finds with a Nubian man who accepted her desire to row on the river and helped her realize it. The story is just beautiful. Mahoney's affection and interest for him--and his for her-- is a model for the way we all should treat people from other cultures.

Mahoney makes no pretensions to being an Egypt expert, just a curious traveller. She also doesn't pretend to have had a "grand" adventure. She makes it clear that the part of the Nile she wanted to row was just a fraction of that river. She prepared carefully for her trip and followed it through with guts, persistence, and patience. The book is obviously not about rowing but about all the things that happened on her way to fulfilling a dream and the lessons she learned, which is what it makes it so human and interesting. She finds Egypt beautiful, complex, and compelling and describes it in a vivid and intelligent style.
Mahoney went all over Egypt alone, striking up conversations with strangers, visiting their houses with curiosity, openness, and an attitude of acceptance that is rare. She was sensitive and thoughtful and talked with nearly every person she met, many of whom were men who followed her down the street drilling her with intimate questions, telling her that all foreign women are prostitutes, and making lewd comments. This a common occurrence in Luxor and Aswan. But Mahoney is very perceptive, even-handed, and forgiving about it. Just read this passage about a felucca captain who tricked and mocked her:
"Hussein . . . had tricked me, I knew, as much in bitterness as in fun. More than one felucca captain in Egypt resented the foreigners they served. It was understandable: they earned a marginal living facilitating the leisure of privileged individuals who came to bask in the exotic scenery and mysterious history of Aswan; people who stayed in five-star hotels that the languishing locals in their dusty flip-flops were not allowed to enter; people, pale and plump, who had enough money to bask in a false superiority yet haggled ferociously over pennies with their malnourished hosts . . . the condescension Hussein showed me was likely an echo of the condescension he received."
I could quote many passages like this one.
I read a lot of travel literature. The best travel books are always comprehensive, colorful, and balanced. I'm sure you won't find a more intelligent, informative, self-aware, or sympathetic travel narrative about Egypt than this one.

Rosemary Mahoney has a rare sense of clear-eyed wonder that -- combined with great writing -- makes this book a rare delight.

As someone who has lived in the Middle East, I found her descriptions realistic, honest and always engaging. I wanted to pull out an especially great passage as an example and I ended up feeling like a kid in a toy store -- this one, no, this one. There is rarely a word that doesn't hit the mark, a description that doesn't ring with wonder. This is travel writing at its best.

I won't give you the basic plotline; I'm sure that's in a dozen other reviews. I will just leave you with this excerpt from the book: "Aswan's desert air seems to caress the town with warm promise, lending vividness and meaning to manifestions of poverty and and human struggle that would elsewhere be considered ugly. The piles of garbage, the heaps of smoldering ashes, the scatterings of broken glass, the architectural rubble, the human excrement, the sun-bleached plastic shopping bags and rusted tin cans that seem to ring all Egyptian villages and besmirch every empty plane between them are, in Aswan, softened by the sheer volume of sun and water, color and air. Here, fishermens's houses cobbled together out of mud bricks and rusted tin cans appear somehow more ingenious than slovenly, more fascinating than dispiriting."

I read Mahoney's book before my trip to Egypt and again upon returning to the U.S. It was great to have seen the places she writes about; Abu Simbel, Aswan, Elephantine Island, etc. And the way she writes about the people she encounters is endearing. I've also read "A Likely Story" and look forward to enjoying more of her tales.

I recently returned from a tour of Egypt and a 5 day cruise down the Nile, and I've got to say that Ms. Mahoney has written one great story about this charming and mysterious country. Myself being a single woman and traveling alone in this strange land, I must say that this author is spot on with her descriptions and characterizations of everything Egyptian and there aren't enough words to say how much I enjoyed this book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone planning a trip to Egypt, especially single women traveling alone.

What a beautiful and thoughtful book. Rosemary Mahoney sees and describes clearly using unique combinations of words that illuminate an alien landscape and culture. A literate voice with an honest eye.
I enjoyed the adventures she shared with us and admire the courage she showed in undertaking them.

Over the past couple of months I've read all five of Rosemary Mahoney's books. The first one I read, Whoredom in Kimmage, I picked up because I have an interest in Ireland. I couldn't put the book down, mainly because of the author's perceptions, style, and voice. After Whoredom in Kimmage, my favorite of her books is Down the Nile. This story is so quirky and funny and informative and, like all her books, well-written. I gave the book to a friend of mine, an American, who lived in Cairo for four years. He, too, loved it and even confessed he envied her nerve to do what she had done: find a boat and row 125 miles down the Nile. (I read only one negative review of this book here at Amazon, also from an American who lives in Cairo. that person;'s criticisms reek of some kind of sour grapes. And envy.) my Cairo friend said that the thing that he noticed the most was how accurate Mahoneys descriptions of the peoole and the place are. he said he was a little hestitant to read it , because he never likees books about places he knows really well. Usually doesn't agree with them. But this one he loved. So, that says something for the book. But you don't have to know anything about Egypt, really, to love this book. You don't even have to have an interest in Egypt. It's a book allabout human fragility and curiosity and the problems that come up when there's cultural misunderstanding. it's such a relevant book for the present times. It's full of entertaining hisorical anecdotes andinteresting facts and, more than anything, very engaging stories. Mahoney is a storyteller of the first order.

This book was as excellent as I expected from one of my favorite authors. The purchasing process was smooth & quick, no problems.

You can't know what this book holds in store for you until you read it. A beautifully written first person account of a woman traveling alone on a brave and determined adventure in Egypt, including much history of the region as well as current interactions with the people and the landscape. But really it is the story of what it is like to be a woman, particularly an independent woman, traveling alone, and traveling specifically in Egypt. The whole book builds toward a riveting climax, and the journey is riveting as well. A brilliant piece of work, and thrilling to read.

Two hundred years after Napoleon invaded Egypt author Rosemary Mahoney, a rower, decided to take her own solo trip down the Nile in a small boat - and in a seven-foot skiff helped by Muslim sailor Amr, she begins a boat journey which will ultimately sail her right into the culture and poverty of rural Egyptians. Egyptian women don't row on the Nile, and tourists aren't allowed to for safety purposes - so Mahoney must first fight culture and legal challenges to embark on her journey. Any who would understand Middle Eastern traditions and culture needs Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff, especially general-interest public lending libraries strong in Middle East cultural experiences and travel.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Down the Nile; Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff, Rosemary Mahoney, Little Brown, Hatchett Book Group, 2007.
An independent, world savvy writer in her thirties, from Providence RI, loves to row. In Egypt on a writing assignment she gets the irresistible idea of rowing down the Nile. Two years later she is back, intent on rowing herself from Aswan to Qena. Restrictions about who and where to be on the river and difficulties finding a boat seem insurmountable, and she spends the hot days hanging about the wharfs, bearing up with men's brazen questions and requests. All Egyptian men are like this, she thinks, until she meets Amr, who captains a felucca for sightseeing tourists. Amr has a 7 foot skiff, and surprisingly tells Rose to take it out whenever she likes.
The oars are cumbersome, but she does enjoy rowing about Elephantine Island, still looking for a proper rowboat. When finally she confides in Amr about the real reason she wants a boat, he tries to warn her off--police restrictions; danger of a woman traveling alone, etc. Scenes at Amr's humble home on Elephantine Island (populated by Nubians, which Amr is) with his decrepit mother and resigned, fat sister are heartrending. Seeing Rose's determination, Amr says he will follow her in his felucca part way, to a more advantageous place to buy a fishing boat. They leave at 3:30 am to avoid police checks, Rose buys herself a dilapidated, whimsically painted boat, has adventures, and writes it all up beautifully.
p. 9-- . . . . I rowed on the Charles River in a carbuncled dinghy, while the elegant fours and eights speared by like airborne swans. I rowed on the Aegean Sea and on a pond in Oregon.
p. 121-- The river had a grass-green hue at this hour and felt supple and comfortable beneath me, like a down mattress. On the track that ran along the rubbly east bank at the foot of some sandy reddish cliffs, the train to Cairo clattered and whistled, stirring up a twister of dust behind it. Herons gargled in the bushes overhanging the river. Near noon the call to prayer began to emanate from beyond great stands of banana trees all along the banks; from this distance it was a melancholy lowing sound, warped occasionally by the idle wind. I stayed close to the west bank and rowed steadily while the sun crept higher in the sky. The current seemed to move faster the farther I got from Aswan. I was breathless with expectation, happiness, and anxiety.
p. 145-- . . . . He turned the little glass around and around in his fingers; the hand blown vessel was blue and flawed and full of air bubbles, a coarse, lopsided, hastily fabricated device found in every corner shop in Egypt, and beautiful--to me at least--precisely for its roughness.

Knowing that this book is about an American woman who makes it her mission to row a boat down a section of the Nile, you may think you've got an idea of what it's about. You don't. You have to read it. Just about anything you might anticipate doesn't happen. It's a travel book that's really about being a foreigner - and a woman - in a culture where both tourists and women are regarded with a mixture of fierce protectiveness and alarm. It's easy to use the word chauvinistic to describe the Egyptian men's response to Mahoney as she attempts to buy a row boat to start her journey in Aswan. But it's far more complex than that. Along the way, she meets men of all kinds, most determined to take her under their supervision, while making over-familiar advances. Only one, a Nubian, seems to regard her with the respect she is accustomed to, and half of the book has passed before she is able to finally make an arrangement with him that lets her borrow his boat, while he follows her downstream at a distance in another. Meanwhile the few women she meets envy her freedom and her ability, as a westerner, to move about in the world as she wants.

The journey she takes in the book is not so much about what she sees along the way. Like Florence Nightingale, Flaubert, and other earlier visitors to Egypt, whose travel writings she includes in the book, she focuses on how travel "washes one's eyes and clears away the dust." Illumination comes in the form of talks with the people she meets, and what they reveal is often a kind of perplexed dismay at the cultural ironies that weigh down the spirit and generate a longing for a life that is always elsewhere. Until the final pages, rowing down the Nile itself turns out to be mostly uneventful. Then a late-night encounter with another traveler on the river galvanizes all the pages leading up to it into an eye-clearing vision of what some would call a collision of cultures. Finally, this is a disturbing book that haunts one long afterwards with post-colonial images of a world strangely adrift and - what's the word for it - foreign.

This fun little travel memoir is about Rose, who decides to attempt to row down the Egyptian Nile by herself. Although maybe short on the adventure side of things (in the end, she's on the Nile by herself for only a few days), I found the descriptions of the peoples of Egypt and the beauty of the Nile fascinating. A nice, entertaining read for those of us who have never been (and, in my case, probably never will be) on the Nile. I highly recommend it for those who enjoy travel memoirs.

I have been a big fan of this writer for a long time, so I was really excited when I read the great review of this new book in the New York Times. I bought the book and my expectations were far exceeded by the sheer beauty of it. I think Mahoney has matured as a writer over the years and has really found her voice. This is the story of her solo trip rowing a small boat 120 miles on the Egyptian Nile River. The adventure itself is worth attention, but the thing that always pulls you in with Mahoney's books is her voice and her personality. She is smart, very funny, very gutsy and tough, and has done some crazy travels--which she wrote about in her other book The Singular Pilgrim and also The Early Arrival of Dreams. Though she is tough and determined, she is also very sensitive. She seems to notice everything that happens around her, and though she can be critical and even a little cynical and impatient, you get the impression that she really loves the people she meets. She decided to take this trip, she says, because she likes rowing, which doesn't seem like a real justification for going all the way to Egypt, buying a fishing boat, and rowing alone down the longest river in the world. But then you figure out that rowing a boat in Egypt is just a way of meeting new people and understanding a culture that is very different from ours. I'd say that kind of in-depth travel and experiential analysis are Mahoney's trademark. She's the sort of person who will talk to anyone, even to the people the rest of us wouldn't bother to talk to.

The story reads very smoothly and the writer's encounters with the Egyptian people are what really make this book. In her attempt to buy a boat, she comes to know one sailor in particular and his sweet little sister who has a physical deformity. The way she writes about them is heartbreaking and it is probably my favorite part in this book, aside from the chase scene at the end of the book. What I like most about Mahoney's way of writing is that you feel you are sitting next to her as she is making her journey. Everything is described in a very vivid , intimate way so it's like watching a movie. You kind of feel like you know her, even though she doesn't say very much about her private life. I recommend this book highly and I'm eagerly waiting to see what she will do next.

Great book! I borrowed this book from my local library after reading a review in a magazine. ! enjoyed it so much I bought two copies to give as birthday gifts.
Rosemary Mahoney wrote an entertaining, informative book. I am ready to set sail myself!!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's well written, informative and entertaining. Having lived in Egypt the first 24 years of my life, I can vouch that it is also very authentic.

This book is a rather strange take on the usual "My Trip to Egypt" memoirs written by other intrepid adventurers to the area. Most of the book is spent with the author obsessively searching for a boat in which she can row herself down the Nile - alone. The quest to obtain such a boat brings her in contact with a bevy of wild and wonderful characters - none of them keen to see the author realize her ambition.

I thoroughly enjoyed Mahoney's description of the Egyptian people - their confusion as to why on earth a woman alone would want to row down the Nile, and their often bumbling efforts to allow them to do the rowing for her. She brilliantly evokes the feeling of the Nile and the Egyptian land, so that you can almost feel the heat from the sand and hear the river in it's relentless flow. I came to love the character Amr - a gentle Egyptian with a huge heart and even bigger spirit.

Mahoney peppers her account with fascinating insights from luminaries such as Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert, both of whom had travelled to Egypt in the previous century and had each written of their own
experiences. And along with the historical points of interest, Mahoney unearths all sorts of weird and wonderful facts that won't fail to surprise and titillate the reader.

But then we come to Madeleine Stein. Here is a woman who lives and works in Egypt, speaks fluent Arabic, is obviously somewhat of an adventurer, and she agrees to accompany the author down the Nile in order to satisfy the legal requirements of the inspectors. Indeed, the book is dedicated to her. A fascinating woman by anyone's account, but what does she look like? How old is she? Who does she live with? What does she think about things? Whereas Mahoney has intricately described every other character in the book, including herself from a self snapped photo, there is absolutely no quality information on Madelaine Stein other than the bare facts of her presence. This omission was almost irritating enough to deduct a star from my review.

Other than this, an enjoyable read and highly recommended.

Granted, this writer can turn a phrase and many readers will be lulled by her overwrought prose. I have several problems with this book. Perhaps it is because as an American living in Cairo I take great exception to Ms Mahoney's cultural ignorance of Egypt and her presumptious statements about this wonderful country without having any knowledge of Arabic and having spent very little time in country. Also, I just wasn't overall moved by her grand adventure which only amounted to a total of five days on the Nile. And what happens on this trip? Not much of anything. The five days on the Nile drift by (literally) with some smartly written prose that repetitively describes the sky, the moon, the water, the banks of the river, etc., etc. But most offensive are her quaint descriptions of how Egyptians talk and her innate fear of the natives that she supposedly respects. She does have some insight into her own foolishness and naivete but there just seems something fundamentally dense about a stubborn woman who comes to Egypt and expects to row down the Nile without the societal baggage that comes with the country. Rose: next time you want to come to Egypt; learn some Arabic and leaves the boat fantasy back in Boston. Readers: There are several better travelogues and books on Egypt then this fool's errand. Also, if or when you visit Egypt your stories will be more exciting then those told in this forgettable book.

Down the Nile by Rosemary Mahoney is the story of one woman's quest to row a boat solo from Aswan to Qena, Egypt. This intriguing true story gives Nile trivia, a history of Nile travel, travelogue, and surprisingly little Egyptian history. Rose goes through all sorts of tortured situations trying to even get her hands on a boat in a country where women don't ever go in a boat by themselves or own a boat. The men think she's joking in her search for a rowboat to purchase, and she ends up using deception to purchase one. Most of the book consists of her search for a boat, the history she's read in preparation for the journey, and her meetings with various Egyptian peoples. The book is strongest in her descriptions of the countryside. Here's her take on the sky in Abu Simbel: ..night sky was a metropolis of its own, an enormous velvety parabola embracing the earth... The whole place was a swirling mass of stars. I felt short of breath and utterly insignificant looking at its hugeness and depth. This was a night sky you didn't have to raise your eyes to. It began below the horizon and was always right in front of you, wherever you turned. When I looked at it, the vortex of stars seemed to be lifting me off the ground, and I had to look down at my feet now and then to see that they were firmly planted. After that, I'm ready to grab my passport and head there myself! Rose's interactions with the people of the land are alternately funny and disturbing. Nearly every man propositions her sexually, and those who don't talk to her about sex with no compunctions whatsoever. The book falters when Rose tries to tie her trip down the Nile to trips made by previous travelers, and too much of the book is devoted to the writings of Gustave Flaubert and Florence Nightingale. While it's true that the journey is far more than the destination, the book ends rather abruptly when Rose meets her goal. This is a fascinating look at Egyptian/Nubian culture and well worth the read.

Although this book is about an American woman's journey alone down a portion of the Nile River, it is just as much about the cultural pressures and misunderstandings she encountered as it is about the actual physical journey. She is a wonderful writer, and her descriptions of the Nile and the people on it and around its shores are beautiful, evocative and even sometimes repulsive. But the story in the main revolves around her encounters with Egyptian men and their assumptions about Western women. And paradoxically, some of the frightening moments she experiences come as a result of her equally incorrect assumptions about Egyptians. Highly recommended.

I went to Egypt and sailed down the Nile in 1989 - Aswan, Luxor, many of the cities described in this book I explored. I had unanswered questions after I left Egypt and this book enlightened so many of them. The insight and straight forward approach to the Egyptian people and culture puts you in that boat right behind her. This was a book I could not put down and when I did finish it I mailed it off to my friends in Utah who traveled with me down the Nile. They two found it fascinating and very informative - it is a completion to the many scenarios mingling with the Egyptian people that we were not quite certain about. Excellent author and writer - I look forward to reading more of her books and adventures.
Cheri - Still Traveling to Exotic Lands

I chose to read this book after reading a glowing review in Entertainment Weekly. Rosemary Mahoney is able to convey her adventure so that you feel you are experiencing it yourself. She does not color her experiences with opinion, rather she leaves that to the reader. Although I came away feeling that it is ok to have an experience without stamping an opinion on it, this seems to be the authors way. Read this book, you will not be disappointed and your world view may grow just a little bit.

This is a wonderful little book. Mahoney takes the reader along as she navigates Egypt, her biggest barriers being cultural. Although the adventure itself is simple, her observations of the land, its animals, and its people are far from it. Throughout, she never pretends objectivity, but rather allows us to experience the cultural and geographic shock along with her. It does not feel the least bit embellished. Often sad, at times deeply harrowing (her description of a camel comes to mind), occasionally exhilarating, in the end her account is deeply touching.

The single word that summarizes this beautiful book is "exquisite." It is an exquisitely written travel diary, a brief and inquisitive glimpse into an alien world and culture, in a land that has entranced travellers, tourists, and adventurers for centuries. The result is neither patronizing nor rose-tinted, but compassionate, human, often perplexed, and occasionally fearful.

An accomplished rower, Rosemary Mahoney sets off to fulfil her long-time ambition to row down part of the Nile. Most regard her as stir crazy for even thinking about such a feat, particularly as a woman, in an Egypt paranoid about tourists travelling alone.

Her greatest difficulty turns out to be the seemingly simple task of procuring a boat. Having spent days in Aswan, trying to persuade somebody, anybody, to sell her a small craft, she eventually meets a gentle Nubian felucca captain, who agrees to let her use his boat on condition that he sail his felucca at a distance behind her for protection. Having successfully completed this leg of her trip, she travels to Luxor where she buys another boat and travels a farther stretch of the river to Qena, this time completely alone.

The real treasures in this book are the accounts of Rose's encounters with ordinary Egyptian people, from the giggling group of Nubian village girls, to the creepy Jimi Hendrix look-alike felucca captain. Her conversations with some of the Egyptian men make for wonderful reading. Their mixture of mischievousness, naivety, and malignity; their bizarre and unhealthy obsession with sex; their `doublethink' attitudes to Western and Muslim women, all offer a unique insight into the minds and culture of the people that is accessible, refreshing, and humorous.

Rosemary Mahoney's descriptive powers are at times breathtaking. Her language is simple and yet evocative: the reader can feel the tension in a room, hear the tone of voice in a conversation, see the baked skyline, and feel the oppressiveness of the heat. She has an unusual ability to capture the trivial detail that conveys the essential substance of a situation.

Armchair Interview says: This is one talented writer--and is a top-drawer book.