Home > Errand Summary & Study Guide

Errand | Introduction

''Errand'' originally appeared in The New Yorker in June 1987. It is the last story Raymond Carver wrote and is included in his collection of short stories Where I'm Calling From, published just a few months before Carver died in 1988. It was also included in The Best American Stories, 1988 and received first prize in Prize Stories 1988: The O. Henry Awards. A partly fictionalized account of Russian writer Anton Chekhov's death, "Errand" is unlike any other Carver story. Carver claimed that he was inspired to write the story while reading Henri Troyat's biography of Chekhov, one of Carver's literary idols. The narrative voice of "Errand" is that of a historian, appropriate for a historical story but unusual for Carver in that he seldom wrote explicitly about famous people or mixed fact and fiction in such an obvious manner. Carver details Chekhov's descent into illness and his eventual death in the Black Forest town of Badenweiler, Germany in 1904. With Chekhov in bed dying, his wife, Olga Knipper, sends a Russian bellboy on an errand to secure a mortician, hence the story's title.

Carver draws on a number of historical sources including Chekhov's own writing, Chekhov's sister Maria Chekhov's Memoirs, Leo Tolstoy's journals, and Troyat's biography. Through writing an imaginative account of a well-known person's death, Carver provokes readers to think about the relationship between literature and history and to imagine how they would respond to another person's death. Critics consider "Errand" to be one of Carver's best stories and one that will stand the test of time.

Errand Summary

Part One
Carver begins "Errand" by relating an incident that occurred in 1897, when Chekhov dined with his wealthy friend Alexei Suvorin in Moscow. At the dinner, Chekhov begins hemorrhaging and is taken to a clinic where the famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy visits him. Carver includes this detail to underscore the difference between Tolstoy's approach to writing and Chekhov's and to highlight Chekhov's celebrity and importance as an artist. Carver integrates writing by characters about other characters in his story, which can sometimes be confusing because of the formal manner in which Russians address one another. For example, Maria Chekhov refers to her brother Anton Chekhov as Anton Pavlovich, and Chekhov refers to Leo Tolstoy as Lev Nikolayevich. This section provides background for the rest of the story, which takes place seven years later. Readers learn that Chekhov has tuberculosis but also that he does not take the disease as seriously as he should.

Part Two
This section takes readers ahead seven years to 1904. Carver writes that Chekhov has gone to the German spa town of Badenweiler ‘‘to die.’’ In reportorial fashion, Carver introduces Chekhov's wife, Olga Knipper, and the doctors who treat Chekhov. Chekhov's condition deteriorates, and Dr. Schwöhrer, a doctor specializing in treating celebrities and famous people, is summoned when Chekhov becomes "delirious." When Schwöhrer determines that Chekhov has but minutes to live, he orders a bottle of the hotel's best champagne,... » Complete Errand Summary