Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Apr 25, 2008 Kirk rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's almost a chore to get past the praise excerpted in the first few pages of this debut story collection from 2003. Much better to simply turn to the stories themselves and make your own judgments. These are certainly accomplished short fictions, literary in the sense that their plots are asymmetical in interesting ways, many ending with codas that introduce ambiguity instead of wrapping up the drama. The subject is the African-American experience, of course, of all varieties: children, teenag...more

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Jun 08, 2008 Nathan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Nathan by: my wife

After finishing up a string of dark and heady reads, I picked this up for some light summer reading, on my wife's recommendation. We had originally picked it to read together before bed. The conversation as best I remember went something like:

Me: Oh man, that Gary Soto book of short stories for children was really funny. that's perfect reading for right before bed.
Wife: (Already scanning the bookshelves in our bedroom) Oh yeah, we should pick out something else like that. Is this David Sedaris...more After finishing up a string of dark and heady reads, I picked this up for some light summer reading, on my wife's recommendation. We had originally picked it to read together before bed. The conversation as best I remember went something like:

Me: Oh man, that Gary Soto book of short stories for children was really funny. that's perfect reading for right before bed.
Wife: (Already scanning the bookshelves in our bedroom) Oh yeah, we should pick out something else like that. Is this David Sedaris book any good?
Me: It's okay I guess. There are some funny moments.
Wife: Oh My God! ZZ Packer! This book is perfect!

We never got around to reading it together, but I picked it up last week on my own, and let me just say my wife's gift for non sequitur is unparalleled. While there are splashes of humor to be found in a few of these stories none of them at their core are funny, or light, or breezy. They don't give you any warm fuzzy feelings. They, in fact, pack quite a punch.

Despite being a bit thrown, I really enjoyed the first couple of stories. Packer, as probably everyone in America but me was already aware, is writing about growing up as an African American woman dealing with protestant roots and coming to terms with various dark aspects of humanity. I especially related to the stories that recounted her characters' struggles with their religious culture. Some of the stories Like "Brownies" and "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" are so unassuming and naturally recounted that they feel like a friend talking about small but poignant moments from her true past. Others, such as "Speaking in Tongues" and "Geese" are so gut-wrenchingly brutal, you want to believe there is no way anything like this could possibly be true, although such belief would be naive.

When Packer is on, her writing is nearly flawless in terms of her tone and how she weaves her stories. It is rare to find a writer who writes with so little pretension, so little effort. The opening story "Brownies" is perfect. Packer can't sustain this kind of tight, streamlined storytelling through all eight stories. I thought "the Ant of Self" and "Geese" where particularly problematic. But there are several gems here.

My big issue with the book is that her source material for each story seems wholly breathed from one idea. That isn't to say I don't appreciate the idea of a cohesive collection of stories, but these stories, when read in succession, start to feel like different illustrations all taken from the same sermon. It almost feels like she set out to write a novel, but wasn't sure which angle to write from, so instead she settled on telling short versions of every idea she sketched. By the eighth story, It feels a little bit self-indulgent and preachy. This is too bad, because the really beautiful stories here, "Brownies, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, Our Lady of Peace, and Speaking in Tongues" speak for themselves. I think if Packer covered a bit more ground, the collection would be better balanced.

The overall lack of 3-dimensional supporting characters adds to this feeling of unbalance. In each story the main character seems to be completely surrounded by either sleazy, heartless, or well-meaning but grossly ignorant mentor figures. With the exception of the protagonist in "the Ant of Self," which I found to be probably the weakest story in the collection, there isn't a single positive male character to be found.

Still, the collection is full of humanity, honesty, and heart, and the stories are poetically told. I'm glad my wife bait-and-switched me into picking this up.

Now, where is that light summer pulp?

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May 31, 2007 Erinina Marie rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: teens

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer

This novel at first had me seriously questioning the validity of ever reading another today show recommended novel again. However, the second half of this book by amateur, yet elitist rich and well-educated Z.Z. Packer does in fact have some merit. While I question her actual ability to tell the harsh life stories that she would like to embody and while her childishness does at times shine through, she manages to tell an interesting and seductive tale in t...more

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Apr 13, 2010 oriana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2010

Ooh boy I am terribly behind on writing reviews. Um, what did I think of this? Well, it's a great example of why I hate short stories – when they're bad I wonder why I bothered, and when they're good I can't understand why the author only gave me such a tiny tease. The title story is the best, and "Our Lady of Peace" is great too... so why, ZZ, why? Either of those could have been novels, I'd have kept reading for lots more pages!

A couple of other thoughts:
1. By chance I got an Australian edit...more

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Jan 30, 2008 Elise rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ugh. I spent the entire last part of this book debating in my head whether I was going to be generous and give it three stars, or be honest and stick it with two. I chose honesty.

This collection is not without its strengths: some careful writing, some witty characters. I downright enjoyed the one about the lesbians at college.

But I can't handle all the stupid main characters! Call me an idealist, but I can't imagine that even a sheltered Pentacostal Georgia girl would run off to Atlanta and, wi...more

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Dec 19, 2007 Atena Oyadi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories-slash-vignettes

I started this about 3 years ago - it's quite good, but sad - dark. A little depressing. It was hard to be in the right mood to pick it up again, even though I wanted to.

This author has a talent for articulating disappointment, awkwardness and a whole range of outsider feelings. Her voice is distinctive somehow, and her main characters are distinct from one another. She has a knack for discomfort, describing embarrassing situations with such emotional precision that you wince and cringe and loo...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Dave rated it 3 of 5 stars

I spent a couple days debating whether to go with 3 or 4 stars, and though the former won out this book still has significant merit, especially for a debut book of stories. Overhyped? Absolutely. Yet when Packer tells a tale, rather than beating us over the head with the reminder that racism is indeed bad (thanks, hadn't heard), her talent comes through. "Our Lady of Peace" covers a rag tag group of new Baltimore public school teachers and Packer hits the grind of being a teacher square (I speak...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: book groups

Recommended to Diane by: Today Show Book Club

Shelves: short-stories, dusty-book-2012

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a collection of short stories by ZZ Packer. I've had this book on my shelves for years and just now got around to reading it. All the stories on the surface appear to be focused on the African-American experience and many touch on religious issues. However, "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" is clearly a work of literary fiction with storylines that do not play out in neat arcs but jut back and forth at sharp angles. Likewise the surface reading of the stories is not where...more Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a collection of short stories by ZZ Packer. I've had this book on my shelves for years and just now got around to reading it. All the stories on the surface appear to be focused on the African-American experience and many touch on religious issues. However, "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" is clearly a work of literary fiction with storylines that do not play out in neat arcs but jut back and forth at sharp angles. Likewise the surface reading of the stories is not where the insight, meaning, and power of the stories lies, and honestly some of the surface does not really work. "Brownies", the first story in the collection, is set in the early 1980s creates irony by juxtaposing two slur words, but those words did NOT carry the same weight in that time period. (One could argue still do not carry the same emotional weight.) "Speaking in Tongues" serves up a small-town, sheltered girl who grew up in a strict, fundamentalist home with the immorality of the innercity; one can see the set up from a mile away.
The story in which the title gets its name refers to the lead character Dina getting through her mother's funeral by pretending to be drinking coffee in "some Arabic-speaking country" (128). The last line in the last story in the book gets at the heart of all the stories in the collection: "The sky had just turned her favorite shade of barely lit blue, the kind that came to windows when you couldn't get back to sleep but couldn't quite pry yourself awake." (238) All the stories in the collection deal with this state of being stuck. My favorite line in the book comes from the title story. The college psychiatrist Dina was ordered to see making an interesting observation on her detachment from her life: "... constantly saying what one doesn't mean accustoms the mouth to meaningless phrases. ... Maybe you'll understand that when you finally need to express something truly significant your mouth will revert to the insignificant nonsense it knows so well." (128)
All the stories were previously published, and it would be interesting to see if most her older stories dealt with these themes and how her writing has grown since this collection was published.
I had trouble deciding on a rating for this book. For me a five-star book is one I carry with me for days or weeks waiting to grab someone and say "you need to read this now". I didn't feel that way about this book, but the stories stayed in my mind for days. I found myself in the shower thinking about the stories. I contemplated the power, meanings and characters in the stories while driving my car. Can I not rate this book because the characters' ambivalence rubbed off on me?? :) I would recommend "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" for a book group; I wish I read it with a group. I want to discuss this book!
My hardcover edition only has 5 brief reviews on the back cover but all use adjectives such "comic", "funny", "amuse" and "humor". I did NOT find this book funny in a traditional sense and would have been very disappointed if I was looking for that in this collection. I would pick up other books by ZZ Packer, although I hope her writing has grown to eliminate the few "meaningless phrases" I found in the writing.
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Nov 15, 2011 Julio Rivera rated it 3 of 5 stars

ZZ Packer’s compilation of short stories touch on a variety of topics, of the many, one of the most obvious themes is that of race, and the relationships between different races. However, Packer’s writing does not just touch on race relations on just a superficial level, Packer is able to infuse her writing with different facets of this issue, which cut deeper than just a white versus black idea, but down to a level that reveals just how blinded people can become when they place race on the fore...more ZZ Packer’s compilation of short stories touch on a variety of topics, of the many, one of the most obvious themes is that of race, and the relationships between different races. However, Packer’s writing does not just touch on race relations on just a superficial level, Packer is able to infuse her writing with different facets of this issue, which cut deeper than just a white versus black idea, but down to a level that reveals just how blinded people can become when they place race on the forefront of their lives rather than looking at people as individuals beyond the color of their skin.

In her story “Brownies”, ZZ Packer tells the story of a group of young black girl scouts who feel like their camp has become overrun by a new group of white girls. Upon seeing these young white girls, the minds of the black troop are quickly overtaken by stereotypes of white girls, as they begin to assess the little white girls as stuck up and over-privileged girls used to getting whatever they want. This is shocking, as this type of racial insensitivity actually spreads throughout the youth in our country. It is alarming to think that these types of stereotypical ideas are reinforced into the minds of our children, rather then allowing them to base their thoughts of different people individually through experience, we quickly teach our children how to think negatively about a different culture in its entirety.

As the story continues, the young black troop girls begin to devise a plan to pick a fight with the newly arrived white females. The leader of the black troops begins to concoct a plan, stating that the white girls referred to them as “niggers”. Hell bent on their plan to fight the white girls, the black troop follows them to their cabin, ready to pounce. It is at this point the girls of the black troop realize that the troop of white girls are not overly rich, entitled or spoiled, rather they suffer from mental retardation. This revelation is quite stark, as the young black children could not see past these young ladies skin, completely missing other qualities or struggles these little girls are facing.

It is this approach to race that truly makes ZZ Packer such an interesting author, as she goes beyond the distaste or hatred between different races, rather she places the reader’s attention on the harm these types of attitudes have on others, and truly makes the case for a change in the ideology of people. “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” is full of compelling stories and characters ready to teach and educate readers. Because of this, Packer’s “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” is definitely worthwhile read.(less)

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Nov 15, 2011 Kathleen Turnbull rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. ZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a collection of eight short tales about African Americans from various walks of life dealing with issues in ways that usually don’t end well for them. She uses the African American struggles, mannerisms, and beliefs to weave tells about an individual either attempting to gain some sort of freedom, or escaping tradition or the life in which others have come so accustomed to. Various elements of her writing helped make these dreary tales some what palatable...more ZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a collection of eight short tales about African Americans from various walks of life dealing with issues in ways that usually don’t end well for them. She uses the African American struggles, mannerisms, and beliefs to weave tells about an individual either attempting to gain some sort of freedom, or escaping tradition or the life in which others have come so accustomed to. Various elements of her writing helped make these dreary tales some what palatable, and bring to life the stories themselves.
The diction in which Packer chose for her story allowed her tales to sort of, melt into the images they so coherently described. For example when she wrote in the short story Geese, “Zoltan bolted upright from where he lay and ran after them. For a few moments, the geese flew hysterically, but then landed yards away from him, waddling towards escape, all the while snapping up bits of crackers the Japanese had thrown for them.” I found it very simple to see this man running after these geese so intently.
I believe that Packer’s choice in using plenty of dialogue allowed the stories to look as if it had a life all its own, and also worked very well in giving each story a sort of individuality, even though most of the characters were going through the same need of survival. Such a large amount of dialogue makes sure that the voice that speaks the loudest in a piece is that of the main character, allowing the author’s voice to fizzle out and be no more than fillers to connect to incident to the next. This amount of dialogue also allows you a sort “straight from the horse’s mouth” affect, where you’re not getting a secondhand opinion of someone, but the individual themselves shoes you with the way that they speak plenty about them. For instance, in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, “My name is Dina, and if I could be any object, I guess I’d be a revolver.” I think that hearing it come directly from Dina, rather than the other saying she said it, gave it that quality feeling.
Another thing that Packer that allowed her writing to pop was the way in which she not only used diction for the story to flow and paint pictures with words, but also using colloquial language to give a state of being to characters. For example in Speaking in Tongues, “Oh he ain’t my husband. Not no more. Divorced. He’s a good man, but he got issues.” Using this word structure in her stories gave a voice, personality, and a way in which the character could be recognized.
I believe that Packer’s use of words, dialogue, and commitment to the era in which her story took place allowed her tales to be coherent and enjoyable. Although her subject choice is a bitter pill to swallow and if dissected her stories could speak behind the space in which they were given, they are still quite irresistible once you’ve gotten started.
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Nov 10, 2011 Patrick Faller rated it 3 of 5 stars

In Ann Charters's anthology, "The Story and Its Writer," in which I first read Packer's gem of a story, "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" Charters quotes from an interview in which Packer says she compiled this, her first collection, by picking several of the more polished stories out of the Documents file on her computer and assembling them here. This feels true, as the collection certainly reads unevenly, despite the great deal of editing and unifying that went on before the book's first printing. A...more In Ann Charters's anthology, "The Story and Its Writer," in which I first read Packer's gem of a story, "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" Charters quotes from an interview in which Packer says she compiled this, her first collection, by picking several of the more polished stories out of the Documents file on her computer and assembling them here. This feels true, as the collection certainly reads unevenly, despite the great deal of editing and unifying that went on before the book's first printing. As a whole, the collection stands as a criticism of the notion that race and class no longer matter in today's postmodern America. A handful of the stories--the longer ones, such as "Doris Is Coming," "Speaking in Tongues," and "Our Lady of Peace"--explore the ways in which black women especially seem to be in deeper trouble, because the stories they have to tell contradict the conventional wisdom of a class- and color-blind society. What grinds me about Packer is that she often fails to affect a balance between fiction and polemic. Packer is a traditionalist in terms of her craft. She deals in terms of character, setting, situation, and conflict. So when she looses her tongue and writes a sentence in which a character's action is satirized or judged in some way, she crosses the metafictional boundary, breaking the rules she's set for herself as a realist. While this may give Packer's work the edge for which she's often praised--Zadie Smith and George Saunders both claim that Packer's work has shaken up the world of contemporary fiction in ways that most contemporary writers' work, grounded as it mostly is in staid realism, can't--for me it felt as if she'd given up to some extent on her art, compromised the integrity of her vision in some way.

It's hard to write, I understand that, and there's something to be said about any story that achieves some kind of affect. Despite my criticisms, I think Packer's certainly worth your time. She's serious about getting her characters' struggles right, and she writes as if possessed by a rage that is borne of intelligent reflection, the product of careful consideration and a lack of reasonable alternatives. For these qualities, both of which she's infused into her writing, she does have something important to say about what it means to try to make a life in a world that seems to want to deny a very large and distinct part of who you are. (less)

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Oct 04, 2011 Leah added it

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
ZZ Packer
The Berkley Publishing Group, Copyright 2003

If you think you want to read this book because you like coffee and travel, you probably shouldn’t read Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. If you aren’t quite sure about who you are, where you’re going, or what you’re doing with your life, then this may be the book for you. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a collection of short stories that focus on protagonists that feel uncomfortable or unfulfilled leading the lives they have.

A...more Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
ZZ Packer
The Berkley Publishing Group, Copyright 2003

If you think you want to read this book because you like coffee and travel, you probably shouldn’t read Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. If you aren’t quite sure about who you are, where you’re going, or what you’re doing with your life, then this may be the book for you. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a collection of short stories that focus on protagonists that feel uncomfortable or unfulfilled leading the lives they have.

All of the protagonists are African American and each story shows their relationship with whites and with each other in a slightly different way, in different times and places. Although race is not the most important theme in this book (in my opinion many of the stories could have been told without race being included at all), it is a key element in the narration style.
I think that the major theme of all of these stories is the idea of self-identity. The protagonists explore their individualism, their importance and value, and their relationships with others.

Several of the stories really stood out to me:

In “Brownies,” the narrator, Laurel, who tells the reader that she is called “Snot” by her classmates, describes her Girl Scout troop, which consists entirely of black girls plans to confront another troop of white girls, accusing the latter of saying “nigger.” Ironically, when the girls learn that their enemies are actually a group of delayed learners, they have no problem with calling them “retards” a word that is considered extremely offensive when used in a derogatory way today. The African American girls even use the term “Caucasian” to describe anyone who looks foolish, or messes up. “Brownies” focuses on the power and importance of words, and of truth, themes that are continued in several more stories in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.

In “The Ant of the Self,” the narrator, Spurgeon, is an intelligent kid who takes classes with white kids and feels out of place in his school and his family. Spurgeon doesn’t really care about the debate team at his school, he doesn’t really care about the civil rights movement, and he doesn’t really care about his father. Like many of the characters in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere he is at a bit of a crossroads in his life, and he’s coming to terms with the way other people want him to be and the way he is.

In “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” the story from which this compilation takes its name, Dina, a student at Yale, goes against what is expected of her for the first time in her life. She becomes an outcast and struggles with her sexual orientation and self-identity, which are two very relevant topics to teenagers all over the world today. I believe this story earned its position as title story because I think it is the most relevant to the things that many young people are going through today. As in many of the stories in this collection the word choice is stark, realistic, and without embellishment so that the character is the one with the power, rather than the author.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a book with the feeling of having written itself. The protagonists of each story speaks with such a natural voice that it was hard for me to believe that someone separate had written all of them. The stories contain messages on the power of the individual, choice, and (perhaps most importantly), words.
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Apr 07, 2011 Jeffrey Moll rated it 5 of 5 stars

Upon picking up Drinking Coffee Elsewhere I quickly glanced over a few chapters and soon realized the gem in my hands. The dialog was the first thing that made me fall for this book while the realism behind ZZ Packer’s characterization was the second. A compiling of eight short stories this book takes on the African-American experience through the use of compelling protagonists that must keep taking on more challenges. In the title story, Dina the main character copes with her challenges by drin...more Upon picking up Drinking Coffee Elsewhere I quickly glanced over a few chapters and soon realized the gem in my hands. The dialog was the first thing that made me fall for this book while the realism behind ZZ Packer’s characterization was the second. A compiling of eight short stories this book takes on the African-American experience through the use of compelling protagonists that must keep taking on more challenges. In the title story, Dina the main character copes with her challenges by drinking coffee while imagining herself in a different place. Her awkward situations are put into motion because of her impulse to compare herself to a revolver while in orientation at Yale. Moments like these keep the reader in Packer’s world of belief, they are by no means model protagonists but it is in their struggles that one finds a connection.

When looking at her use of characterization each person has their own dark side to themselves raising the question of a true protagonist. Racism is a theme used in her stories to convey a prejudice within all of us. In the story Brownies Packer uses a double-edged sword when forming a story around a black Girl Scout troop verses a white one. In the end they don’t see a problem calling the white girls “retarded” because they are slow, but when they are called “niggers” it becomes highly offensive. This personalizes and grounds her characters by having them face hardships and make the personal decision of whether or not to act on their own negative impulses.

ZZ Packer uses an interesting tool when closing her stories. It simply ends. This allows the reader to form their own ending based off the specific loose ends in the stories. Dina may or may not be gay; it is still left unanswered while the foundation behind her characterization would lead you to believe it to be a form of copping through companionship. The boundaries that Packer gives her characters transcend easily to the reader because of the basic challenges. They struggle with the requirement of control in their jobs while suppressing themselves because of faith or lack thereof.

The seclusion felt with Dina while inside her head on her first day is communicated with choppy sentences imitating her thought process. The language that Packer uses is to the point and rhythmic so much that the stories can read like a screenplay; the descriptions are brought to their raw form which leaves a lot of work for the dialog, she accomplishes this by balancing internal mood with external spats of language. Another important factor of Packer’s language is her subtle humor sprinkled throughout the stories. Dina decides to sit in front of her door naked so the random dean check-ups cease—she accomplishes this and quickly moves onto sarcasm mimicking her own power struggle.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere represents literature’s ability to present a sense of realism because the stories don’t have a specific closing; they represent merely difficult moment in a characters life in which the reader is fortunate enough to be a part of.
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Aug 21, 2009 Rebecca rated it 2 of 5 stars

Inconsistent.

This is one of those cases where the first story in the collection is so awesome, so perfect, so natural and funny and wise and honest that it's impossible not to expect some of that in the rest of the stories. "Brownies" is really fantastic, and should be (and will be) anthologized everywhere. There's a twist at the end that was, for me, entirely unforeseeable. This story deserves the rave reviews that the collection received. (Most of which are printed on the first 7 pages of the...more

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Apr 29, 2013 olaszka rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

z.z. packer is a natural writer and that's what makes this collection of short stories a true gem.
i first picked up this book right after i bought it for a song in a london charity shop. later on i was asked (to my great surprise) to read parts of it for one of my uni courses. now i've finally finished it. this makes reviewing it quite tricky so instead i'm just going to share some generals observations:

z.z. packer is a natural writer which means she's got a gift for capturing human quirks in a...more

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Jun 27, 2012 Elizabeth Yon rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this book of stories in one day, it is so engaging. Each story is a perfect jewel, prised from the glittering mayhem of life, held up to the light of unsentimental regard, each facet clearly shown. The characters are absolutely true to life, their situations real and immediate in a way that makes me feel that Packer lived these things and these people - if not personally, then through people she knows well. Dialogue flows believably into the reader's "ear", turns of phrase are peppery and...more

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Jul 30, 2010 Michelle Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars

This collection of short stories had been on my “to read” list for so long that perhaps there was no way for me to not be disappointed by it. I had to force myself to push through and finish this book and when I did I walked away quite unsatisfied.

The more I thought about my disappointment though the more I realized it wasn’t disappointment at all. It was instead discomfort. The book didn’t offer any element of escapism at all. Even though I had next to nothing in common with the actual characte...more

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May 25, 2007 kathryn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: shortstories

Well, I was really into it at first and then there were a bunch of "factual inconsistencies" like the person would leave something one place and then take out the item and use it on the next page-those inconsistencies don't really destroy the intent or feeling of the story, but make it hard for me to read. I think overall that I liked the first half of the stories a good bit more than the second half of stories-they seemed to sort of dwindle-maybe it is just me.

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Jan 01, 2012 Frederick Bingham rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a book of short stories, all of whose main characters are African-American women.One of the most memorable, "speaking in Tongues" is about a young teenage girl named Tia. She is living with a strict religious aunt in Alabama. One day she gets sick of it and decides to take a bus to Atlanta to find her mother, who has apparently gone wayward and lives doing unknown sinful things. She meets with a guy named Dezi who is a pimp and drug dealer. Dezi tries to sleep with her, but she resists....more

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Jan 12, 2011 Mr. Woodnal rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This collection of short stories mostly center around coming of age pieces in which African-American adolescent protagonists face important elements of self-discovery, although a few also focus on adults and their own struggles with identity. The first story entitled "Brownies" begins with the one of the most fantastic opening lines I've ever read: "By our second day at Camp Crescendo, the girls in my Brownie troop had decided to kick the asses of each and every girl in Brownie Troop 909." The s...more

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Jan 06, 2013 L rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: intelligent-fiction

I'd heard amazing things about this writer from various sources. Packer has been compared to Zadie Smith, Flannery O'Connor, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Terry McMillan. Believe the hype; the author has earned it. The prose stunned me from the first story and just didn't stop, effortlessly pushing stories along to satisfying and thought-provoking conclusions. As an added bonus, I was able to physically picture the streets in some of the stories, being familiar with the areas about which she...more I'd heard amazing things about this writer from various sources. Packer has been compared to Zadie Smith, Flannery O'Connor, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Terry McMillan. Believe the hype; the author has earned it. The prose stunned me from the first story and just didn't stop, effortlessly pushing stories along to satisfying and thought-provoking conclusions. As an added bonus, I was able to physically picture the streets in some of the stories, being familiar with the areas about which she was writing. I found myself rereading the fresh metaphors; nothing is trite or unoriginal here; it is almost as if this woman has been blessed with viewing the world in an additional color and is describing what the world looks like to her with that color in it. For example: "Dina did not want to talk about food but found herself describing the salmon croquettes her mother made the week before she died. Vats of collards and kale, the small islands of grease floating atop of pot liquor, cornbread spotted with dashes of hot sauce. It was not the food she ate all the time, or even the kind she preferred, but it was the kind she wanted whenever she was sick or lonely; the kind of food that - when she got it - she stuffed in her mouth like a pacifier." Packer doesn't even mention the specific word that this is referring to and yet we know.

Another I liked: "He had a smile like a sealed envelope…" I could picture it so well and knew my immediate reaction to this character.

One story, "Geese," emerged as the singularly superior story in the collection. This may be because of my connection with the main character but it also may be because of the last line of the story, which I had to read twice. I knew, at that point, that ZZ Packer had weaved her way into my thoughts during the story and knew how I thought, knew what I was thinking…and knew what conclusions I was drawing. And then she dropped that line on me and made me feel like I hadn't learned a thing from the story, which was, of course, her masterful intent. A beautiful, sly genius. Watch out for this author; she is going places. You can't write like this and not tear the literary world open by its seams.(less)

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May 14, 2010 Nicholas Armstrong rated it 1 of 5 stars

I'm not sure where to start with this, as I'm not sure which bothered me more or what takes precedent with a short story. Is the telling of the story more important than the voice? Is there something more important than both? What if both aren't quite up-to-snuff? That is kind of the case here and I'm a little put-off by it.

I'll start with the voice, because it was the first thing that bothered me and it consistently bothered me. Don't get me wrong, there are good stories within, or, at least de...more I'm not sure where to start with this, as I'm not sure which bothered me more or what takes precedent with a short story. Is the telling of the story more important than the voice? Is there something more important than both? What if both aren't quite up-to-snuff? That is kind of the case here and I'm a little put-off by it.

I'll start with the voice, because it was the first thing that bothered me and it consistently bothered me. Don't get me wrong, there are good stories within, or, at least decent stories within, but Packer's voice is so strong in all of them that it ruins whatever she may have been aiming for. It isn't like reading Vonnegut and saying, oh, this is Vonnegut, I can tell by the prose. It is more like, oh, this is Packer, I can tell by the opinions. I'm not saying that authors shouldn't have opinions or that they should not be incorporated into stories, but if done poorly we end up sermonizing. The last thing anyone wants to read is a sermon on how to live, what is naughty and what is right, and that sort. These stories were so concerned with race that I couldn't help wondering why. Let it be known, I am white, I also live in California, maybe it is different here, but black people and white people are pretty similar. The mentalities in some of Packer's stories (and this was published in 2003) are so racist I thought each one took place in 1961. I know racism exists still and I know there are parts of America that are far more prone to it, but when nearly every story is hung up on race I begin to wonder.

Let's break that thought for a moment though, I think after having finished this book I need to do a little sermonizing myself. I get that there is racism still alive and well today and that there was a history of it, but goddammit stop acting like it is the only important thing. So much of what is associated with black people is about slavery that there is almost no thought put into any of the other things they've done. I mean, we wouldn't even need a black history month to teach people about it if we just incorporated the shit into history. Langston Hughes, for example, is cited as this father of agony and pain by Packer but I find it insulting that that is the only focus on him. I don't care that he was black, I care that his poems were amazing. I care that he incorporated a culture and music and a feeling in a way that so many others could not. What his poems were about were second to my awe at how they were crafted, and I think it's sad that so many people care about the what they don't really respect him for the how. This is how I view this novel. Every story seems so hung up on race that Packer didn't really have anything to say about anything else, and I think that is a little depressing.

But outside of that, there is the process of storytelling. Prose and diction are one thing, but there is also simply the craft, deciding what makes the final cut and what does not, and whether or not the message is clear. So many of the stories seemed literally to ramble across time and descriptions and all it did was distract me. Perhaps Packer's intent was a 'slice of life' sort of thing, but in writing I always felt that was ridiculous. We don't write the way life is just like dialogue isn't written like real conversations -- it's boring. So what Packer has is several stories which end in places that feel almost entirely random. The characters seem to make no breakthroughs and the stories progression is not a steady incline but more a straightaway which simply says 'end road'.

Then there is what we see and what we do not. I get the strong feeling all of these stories were thoughts itching at the back of Packer's mind that she didn't flesh out until she sat down. I imagine this because so many things are assumed. We are somehow supposed to know that a character's arm was scratched, despite it not being described -- and most importantly, that we as the reader were reading the scene where the character was scratched, despite there being no description of it. It honestly just seems amateurish to not fix these mistakes, there is no reason to leave out these scenes. Either mention the scratch, so when it is describe we understand, or cut it altogether, do not cut the action and leave the scene. As they say (they all do, really), Show, don't tell.

Outside of these, I still have another complaint, and it is in the descriptions. Must we be beat over the head? I'm not huge on symbolism, and I often feel that simply writing an essay or treatise on a subject is more effective than masking it behind a poor story, but trying to make something symbolic and then telling your reader what it means is... insulting. Either tell me, or don't, do not show me and then explain it. It insults the reader, and it insults the point. What really irks me was that this was done so casually and with so many things that were entirely unimportant. How a sunset or a lake reflected a person or situation would first be described, i.e., the sun was setting at the end of her day, and then we would be told, much like the way her day had ended, with a beautiful but short interlude in a distant land. It's just so... awful. It's like reading a parable for adults.

Keep in mind, this isn't terrible, and the writing isn't terrible, but I've read things just as good in my college English courses. It reeks of inexperience as well as opinions. The first things most people write are close to the heart, but things become muddled when this is done poorly and we get the thinly veiled stories of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Keep sentiments out of it and write stories and characters that are stand alone, that you like and don't, that could and do exist without your authorial presence.

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May 23, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

When I began reading Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer, I was taken aback by the power of a good story; the kind of story that gives me a peek into a life I don’t know anything about, the kind of story that surprises me or that makes me stop a moment to contemplate what I’ve just read. Those are the kinds of stories that Packer has written for her first and only short story collection. She was first published in Seventeen magazine at the very young age of 19. She grew up in Atlanta, GA and...more When I began reading Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer, I was taken aback by the power of a good story; the kind of story that gives me a peek into a life I don’t know anything about, the kind of story that surprises me or that makes me stop a moment to contemplate what I’ve just read. Those are the kinds of stories that Packer has written for her first and only short story collection. She was first published in Seventeen magazine at the very young age of 19. She grew up in Atlanta, GA and Louisville, Kentucky. Her childhood in the American South has obviously served as inspiration for her short stories, which are mostly told from the perspective of women of color, living in the South and dealing with life as African Americans.
One of the prominent themes in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is religion. In “Every Tongue Shall Confess” Packer writes the story of Sister Clareese, a choir member of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized who is also a nurse. What is interesting about the use of religion in this and other stories in the collection is that the depiction of the religious isn’t exactly a good one. Sister Clareese is actually molested by one of the so-called holy men, Deacon McCreedy, whom she hates. The sister states that she could have forgiven him of his abuse, “for she understood that an unmarried man might have needs,” but it was the fact that he ignored her that she could not forgive. Not only do we get an unsavory portrayal of religious men, who are swayed from their religious oaths and trespass personal boundaries, but we see that not even religious women can forgive those that trespass against them.
This story further complicates the idea of religiousness with Clareese wanting to convert one of the men she is nursing back to health, whose name is Cleophus. He laughs at Clareese’s attempts to spread the word of God, yet he is the only one that supports her in the end when he shows up at the church. When Clareese sees Cleophus at the church she is unsure why he is there, but then the truth dawns on her. “He’d come for her. He’d come despite what she’d told him, despite his disbelief.” Clareese cannot trust the “men of God”, one of whom abuses her, but she can trust this man who is not a believer. This really does put a twist on the institutions of religion and the men that are at the forefront of the church. Packer seems to be questioning, not religion per say, but the false piety that exists in the world.
Packer’s stories typically showcase a world from the perspective of a woman of color and the difficulties and tension that comes with being of African descent. In the past, even after segregation had already been deemed unconstitutional and wrong, whites and blacks existed on different levels and kept to themselves. In the first story of the collection “Brownies”, the effects of that separation is apparent. This story is narrated by a young Brownie, whose nickname is Snot. Snot and her fellow Brownies go to camp where they meet the group of white girls in Troop 909 and instantly there is racial tension. “When you lived in the south suburbs of Atlanta, it was easy to forget about whites. Whites were like those baby pigeons: real and existing, but rarely seen or thought about.” Packer shows that not only are whites not understanding of the blacks, but the blacks are not understanding of the whites.
The racial tension in Brownies is further racketed up by the claim that one of the girls in Troop 909 called one of the black girls, Daphne, a nigger. The girls devise a plan to confront Troop 909 and “teach them a lesson!” When the girls finally get a chance to carry out their plan by ambushing Troop 909 in the restrooms, they realize their mistake. The troop is made up of girls that are mentally disabled. The girl that claimed she heard one of the Troop 909 girls say “nigger” was likely lying and not sure how to deal with white people, leading her to want to have confrontation with them. The story leads me to believe that Packer is saying that not only do whites have misconceptions of blacks, but blacks also have misconceptions of whites. This leads to unnecessary violence, anger and in the case of the girls, embarrassment.
What I appreciated in Packer’s stories is that despite some of the heavier topics she tackles, like racism, there are still moments of comic relief. The dialogue she constructs is very believable and at times made me laugh. In “Every Tongue Shall Confess”, one of the characters named Pastor Everett is giving a sermon to the church on putting God first in one’s priorities. “… ‘Let me tell ya!’ Pastor Everett shouted, his voice hitting its highest octave, ‘Jeeee-zus – did not tell his Daddy –‘I’m sorry, Pops but my girlfriend is on the other line’; Jeeee-zus- never told the Omnipotent One, ‘Can you wait a sec, I think I got a call from the electric company!” The absurdity of thinking about Jesus speaking to God and addressing him as “Pops” and they way that the Pastor is saying Jesus is funny and keeps the reader entertained. The pastor goes one with things that Jesus wouldn’t say, the funniest one being “I’m sorry, Brother Luke, but I got some mac and cheese in the oven; I’m sorry, but I got to eat this fried chicken cause it’s finger-licking good!” These scenes allowed me to place myself in the moment, right with Clareese, bringing me into the story.
Packer stories are so rich, offering the viewpoints of characters in situations so different from many of us, that deal with things like religion and placement in the world yet can still poke fun and make me laugh. Reading Packer is to immerse yourself fully into a different time and different place than now, but many of the things she writes about are relevant to everyone. “Every Tongue Shall Confess” makes me think of what I think about religion. “Brownies” makes me think of my own misconceptions of others. It takes strong writing to be able to take the world of one character and allow the reader to place themselves in that characters shoes for the length of the story. Packer’s writing does just that, and it is definitely worth it.
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Dec 16, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

An interesting companion to Jennifer Egan's Emerald City which I just finished. In that collection--so often lauded as "promising"--I was looking back to the early career of a now holy-wow author. Here, I imagine I'm on the front end of something much the same. Packer's got chops and will "surely do great things" as some reviewer has certainly said, but most of stories fall just short: too long ("Speaking in Tongues"), too predictable ("Our Lady of Peace"), too dull ("Geese"), etc. The stories t...more

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Mar 11, 2011 Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who writes, anyone who reads

Recommended to Emily by: Michael

There are two things that I hate about my writing: the fact that it’s predictable and the fact that nothing happens.

On the other hand, what makes ZZ Packer such a spectacular writer is that her stories do the exact opposite of what mine do: they create original situations and characters that could only exist in her stories, and they move. The action moves, yes, but more importantly it moves you.

So many of the stories in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere feel familiar at first. They contain people and wo...more There are two things that I hate about my writing: the fact that it’s predictable and the fact that nothing happens.

On the other hand, what makes ZZ Packer such a spectacular writer is that her stories do the exact opposite of what mine do: they create original situations and characters that could only exist in her stories, and they move. The action moves, yes, but more importantly it moves you.

So many of the stories in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere feel familiar at first. They contain people and worlds we may know or have already read, but, within a few paragraphs, there is some beautiful detail, some fantastic show of character that makes you think, a.) Thank God she isn’t turning this story about an inner city teacher into an already-done version of Dangerous Minds, and b.) I can’t imagine anyone doing or saying that except for this character.

That, to me, is fantastic storytelling. That, to me, is outstanding character development.

My fiction professor this summer interrupted a workshop by holding up his hand and shaking his head in disagreement. Someone had been saying something about a character not being believable, how no one she knew would ever do that. It was one of the hottest days of the summer, and the wood-walled classroom smelled like a sauna. One drop of sweat fell from behind my professor’s ear down into the U of his clavicle and stayed there.

“There is no such thing as a character being believable. Characters do not serve as some version of a person you’ve met or known before. Characters have to be true to themselves. They’re individuals, they are unique, and if they’re good characters, they are not someone you know or have ever known. What is important is to achieve an understanding of a character so that their actions are actions only they would take, and their words are words that only they would say.”

I think I fell in love with him in that moment. Or maybe it was the moment he held class outside, sitting Zen-like on the hard ground, not moving a muscle while we all fidgeted and complained about the sun and the ants and the birds shitting on us. “I’m sixty years old,” he said. “If I can take it, your young bodies can, too.” When we stood up at the end of the three-hour class, he wiped the dirt from his bare calves and seemed unfazed.

Had ZZ Packer been in our class the day that he explained that characters were not representations of people, but real people themselves, our professor would have pulled her nine-pager from that week’s pile and read it aloud to us in his steady voice. “This!” he would have said when he was done, “This is exactly what I mean.”

Maybe what is so remarkable is that Packer doesn’t even need an entire novel to realize her characters. Franzen wasted 500+ pages on characters that felt one-dimensional, hysterical, and undeveloped. Packer knocks them out in 30-40 page stories that effervesce with people, life, and language.

And, oh, her language! The margins of my books are pockmarked with stars and exclamation points next passages that move me or stick out as remarkably well written, and there is no shortage of pen marks in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. The difference, however, is that Packer has the distinct ability to create analogies and descriptive moments that serve double duty. They are original and remarkable, yes, but they serve a purpose, whether it being by comparing the young white girls’ complexions to ice cream flavors, or the salesman standing alone among his electronics to a man standing in a graveyard, or describing a middle eastern man’s face looking “as dim as a brown fist,” or how one character stuffed certain foods into her mouth “like a pacifier,” or (the most heartbreaking moment) how the abandoned daughter in search of her mother sees “a squirrel on the sidewalk, dead, clutching the branch that had failed it.” Packer doesn’t just throw out analogies because of a similarity in appearance, sound, or sensation. She uses each description to underscore the issues and themes that run through and support her stories like a circulatory system: race, violence, sexuality, progress, religion, poverty, abandonment, and loss.

What writers do that anymore? No writers that’s who. Writers concoct analogies that work like mine just did above, comparing the themes of a book to a vascular system to show how supportive they are to the story, not to spotlight the actual themes themselves. As Zadie Smith says in her praise of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Packer has “the kind of brilliance for narrative that should make her peers envious and her readers very, very grateful.” Am I envious? You bet. Am I grateful? Undoubtedly, and I will continue to be grateful as a reader, a writer, and a citizen of the world that Packer has split open and shown to anyone lucky enough to read her work. (less)

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Feb 17, 2011 Nita rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Nita by: My brother

I have many books in my house that I have not read, so I decided to look through them and pick one. My brother had to read this book for school and he really enjoyed it. Like one of the other books I have read, Interpreter of Maladies, this book contains many short stories. I like that because you can not get bored of the book if you're reading many different stories. The story I enjoyed most was, The Ant of the Self. It was about a boy having to take his father everywhere and he was missing a b...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Phil rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I saw the title of this book out of the corner of my eye as I rushed past out of the library. "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" was enough to get me to stop my fast walk and return to actually take the book off of the shelf. I then scanned the information on the inside of the jacket. The book is hailed as the long-awaited debut of the ZZ Packer. She is said to "dazzle with her command of language, surprising and delighting [the reader] with unexpected turns and indelible images" contained within the s...more I saw the title of this book out of the corner of my eye as I rushed past out of the library. "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" was enough to get me to stop my fast walk and return to actually take the book off of the shelf. I then scanned the information on the inside of the jacket. The book is hailed as the long-awaited debut of the ZZ Packer. She is said to "dazzle with her command of language, surprising and delighting [the reader] with unexpected turns and indelible images" contained within the stories of the book. At the end of this praise it is said that "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a striking performance-fresh, versatile, and captivating. It introduces...an arresting and unforgettable new voice."

Whenever I find a book, or any piece of writing, described in these words I am immediately suspicious and intrigued. My natural cynicism does not allow for such high praise to be true, and my natural wonder wishes for it to be so. With trepidation, I began reading.

The first story, "Brownies", was rife with imagery and poetic prose, and had it been less, I would have really enjoyed the colorful descriptors, but as a trope it quickly was overused. Every single one of the stories is about a young, poor, black person, and all but one, I think, we about young poor black women. I am a bit unsure because after the third story the characters and settings seemed to meld into one gritty inner city haze of poverty, and the characters meshed into one 1960's cliche black person. This is not a racist critique, but a critique of "freshness" "new voice" and "unforgettable" stories. The stories were predictable, uniform, and after a while, confusing. I felt each successive tale was but a continuation of the one before it, but with changing names.

Finally, all the stories were depressing. I knew that this would be the case before I even picked up the book, and was not disappointed. In this, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere really delivered. I found this unsurprising because, as an undergraduate Literature student, every single book I was assigned to read was a depressing "gritty" "real-world" "realistic" look at life. The images, language, and characters were supposed to be shocking and alive, but it does not take long before the supposed "hard look at life" becomes just another tired way of writing about life. Having read Mary Karr, Tobias Wulff, and those like them, this book is one and the same with their memoirs. (ZZ Packer even thanks Tobias Wulff for his help in revising her manuscript, which also is not surprising.)

In short, the stories are quite in the current vogue for memoir writing that I have been exposed to, but without the benefit of being true. I give two stars because ZZ Packer wrote most of these stories while quite young and managed to get them published, an achievement of sorts.(less)

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May 21, 2009 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary_fiction, short_stories, stunning_covers

Really, really extraordinarily excellent. The stories here that are the best—most of which have been anthologized in yearly best-of annuals—are the sorts readers come back to again and again, and for good reason: She writes about race in a kind of post-Baldwin manner. Yes, it is an issue for someone growing up black, but often, it more troublesome still for a young life are a lack of money and options, a nasty upbringing, the crazy prejudices about everyone else that we each of us carry buried i...more

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Feb 22, 2010 Malbadeen rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: short story lovers

Shelves: short-stories-essays

I have to admit I bought this book based on a shallow premise. I saw the cover at a thrift store and I adored it, I read the first lines of most of the stories (which are awesome!) and decided to spend the whopping 2.00 on it.
But then it sat on my shelf for waaaay too long. Once I started it, I was in love! I thought about quoting some/all of the first lines for you here but I'd rather you get the book and have that experiences with the tangible turn of the pages (mmmmm, can you feel it?).
The t...more

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Jul 06, 2009 Sharline rated it 3 of 5 stars

Stories that come to life. At times too wordy for my taste but I definitely got hooked, story after story, couldn't put it down.

Overall, beautiful stories, at times funny, at times sad, stories, and especially characters, that come to life. Great dialogue. Anyone else read this? Thoughts?

I think my favorite in the collection is Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. It really moved me, broke my heart slowly and soundly.

What I appreciate is how she turns the end of her stories toward the unexpected and isn...more

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