Drinking Coffee Elsewhere - Hardcover

Z. Z. Packer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1573222348 ISBN 13: 9781573222341

Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2003

Synopsis

In a debut collection by an award-winning short story writer, a scout troupe of African-American girls is confronted by a group of disabled white girls, a young man considers his allegiance to his father during the Million Man March in Washington, and an international group of work-seeking drifters find themselves starving in Japan. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

ZZ Packer is the author of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (2003). Frequently published in such journals as���The New Yorker���and���Granta, she is at work on a novel,���The Thousands,���which explores the lives of former Louisiana slaves in forming a labor movement, as well as the fates of African-American "buffalo soldiers" assigned in the Southwest to battle the last Native American resistance force, the Apaches. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy in Berlin Prize and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship. She has taught at many institutions including Princeton, where she was a Hodder Fellow; the Michener Center at the University of Texas; Vassar College; and as a Jones Lecturer at Stanford. She received her education at Yale (BA), Johns Hopkins��� (MA), the University of Iowa (MFA), and Stanford as a Stegner Fellow.

Reviews

Adult/High School-The characters in these stories are mainly African American, but that is where their similarity ends. From the young Brownie troop member in the opening tale to the teen in the pre-civil rights South closing story, each one has a unique voice. The strong role of the church is evident, but the characters range from the very religious to the very doubtful. Sexuality is problematic-from the older virgin who is more interested in preaching the gospel to the 14-year-old virgin runaway who has also been preaching the gospel but can't help continuing a dalliance with a man she suspects may be a pimp and a drug dealer. The settings are Baltimore, Washington during the Million Man March, and, in a particularly bleak story, Japan. Each selection is strong, but "Brownies" may be the strongest. It's full of dark humor and unseen plot twists, reminiscent in tone of a Flannery O' Connor tale. All of the selections appeared previously in various literary magazines. Older teens will find much to enjoy in this collection. For those studying the short story as a literary format, it would make an excellent companion to more classic tales.
Jamie Watson, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The clear-voiced humanity of Packer's characters, mostly black teenage girls, resonates unforgettably through the eight stories of this accomplished debut collection. Several tales are set in black communities in the South and explore the identity crises of God-fearing, economically disenfranchised teens and young women. In the riveting "Speaking in Tongues," 14-year-old "church girl" Tia runs away from her overly strict aunt in rural Georgia in search of the mother she hasn't seen in years. She makes it to Atlanta, where, in her long ruffled skirt and obvious desperation, she seems an easy target for a smooth-talking pimp. The title story explores a Yale freshman's wrenching alienation as a black student who, in trying to cope with her new, radically unfamiliar surroundings and the death of her mother, isolates herself completely until another misfit, a white student, comes into her orbit. Other stories feature a young man's last-ditch effort to understand his unreliable father on a trip to the Million Man March and a young woman who sets off for Tokyo to make "a pile of money" and finds herself destitute, living in a house full of other unemployed gaijin. These stories never end neatly or easily. Packer knows how to keep the tone provocative and tense at the close of each tale, doing justice to the complexity and dignity of the characters and their difficult choices.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Packer's debut collection of short stories is full of challenges to its youthful, predominantly African American cast of characters. Often they have everything all figured out when a "Challenging Person" comes barging in, such as in the book's title story, in which Dina and her ramen noodles are walled up in self-imposed dorm room exile until moon-faced Heidi from Vancouver demands her company and, perhaps, her heart. In another, God himself--speaking through an amputee blues musician once known as Delta Sweetmeat--infiltrates the already supposedly holier-than-thou life of Sister Clareese. Sometimes, the challenge is from a hopeful situation turned frustrating and desperate: a group of once-idealistic expatriates starving in a one-room apartment in Japan, for example, or a young city schoolteacher snapping on her drive home. These challenges don't tend to have happy endings, but they are learning experiences for the characters and moving reading for us. Packer's prose suggests university writing-workshop fiction at its insightful best, full of youthful angst and irreverence, yet polished, professional, and captivating. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1573222348
• ISBN 13: 9781573222341
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224