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Apr 25, 2008

Kirk rated it:

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...

8 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 08, 2008

Nathan rated it:

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. More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Erinina Marie rated it:

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 seducti More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2010

oriana rated it:

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 cha More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2008

Elise rated it:

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 wou More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2007

Atena rated it:

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 a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Diane rated it:

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 More...

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Nov 15, 2011

Julio rated it:

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...

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Nov 15, 2011

Kathleen rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Nov 10, 2011

Patrick rated it:

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 More...

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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 th More...

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Apr 07, 2011

Jeffrey rated it:

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...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 21, 2009

Rebecca rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 30, 2010

Michelle rated it:

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 act More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

kathryn rated it:

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 rated it:

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 More...

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Jan 12, 2011

Mr. Woodnal rated it:

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 T More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 14, 2010

Nicholas rated it:

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, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2011

Chris rated it:

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" More...

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Mar 11, 2011

Emily rated it:

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. Th More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 17, 2011

Nita rated it:

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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Feb 15, 2011

Phil rated it:

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" co More...

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May 21, 2009

Michael rated it:

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:

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?) More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 06, 2009

Sharline rated it:

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 s More...

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May 19, 2010

RB rated it:

These are good short stories. I find myself in love with ZZ Packer and looking, searching for more, unrequited. She may be at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas right now - I don't know.
I think my favorite story was "Speaking in Tongues" because it's the raciest, with street people and a little sex and violence mixed in, but that's just my bent. They are all very good and none of them boring or slow.
Her writing is rich with those writerly woman currents of met More...

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May 04, 2011

Brian rated it:

“Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”
by ZZ Packer
Riverhead Books a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.
New York, 2003

From youthful ignorance to religious testament ZZ Packer touches on it all in a series of short stories in her book “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.” Packer tells her stories from many different points of view and different personalities. She goes from her well known story “Brownies,” which is a story of a Girl Scout troop dealing with race and teaching valuable lessons wh More...

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Aug 09, 2007

Qiana rated it:

"Brownies" was intriguing, an updated cross between Bambara's "The Lesson" and Morrison's "Recitatif," maybe. I was a little disappointed with the rest of the collection, especially "Every Tongue Shall Confess."

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2010

The Awdude rated it:

This collection is enjoyable, honest, and pretty standard. Only one of the stories ("Our Lady of Peace") stood out to me as working particularly well. Packer mostly writes about the way African Americans have dealt and continue to deal with racism in this country: they turn, overwhelmingly, to either Jesus or hip-hop. Both are equally silly options to smart people like Packer, a fact which makes for some good old-fashioned condescending humor (which is usually pretty enjoyable in my op More...

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Dec 03, 2007

Patrick rated it:

It's a surprisingly funny book. A few stories were sloppy and disjointed, but overall, a very good book about black identity, religion, and the struggle to survive in the world.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)