Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
First edition
AuthorZZ Packer
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreFiction
PublisherRiverhead Books
Publication date
2003
Pages238
ISBN9781573222624

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a 2003 collection of eight short stories by ZZ Packer. Packer was given an advance for thousands of dollars and she promoted the book in a 13 city tour. The book deals with race, gender, identity, and the need for belonging. It received multiple awards.

Plots

In the titular story, young black Yale University freshman Dina joins a series of orientation games that are meant to help students bond. In a game where students have to answer what inanimate object they would like to be, Dina says a revolver which leads her to have meetings with university staff and a psychiatrist. Her answer transforms her from an "honor roll student" into a "dangerous outcast" to others. Dina insults others, lies to the psychiatrist, and stays away from students who are also black. She begins an affair with a white female student who also has no friends, but Dina stops their relationship when the white girl publicly states that she is a lesbian due to Dina never being true to herself.[1][2]

The story Speaking in Tongues is about a 14-year-old named Tia who runs away from her great-aunt to try to find her mother who abandoned her. Tia fails to find her mother in Atlanta, Georgia, but she meets a prostitute named Marie and a hustler named Dezi. After Tia has a sexual encounter with Dezi, Tia has a "visionary feeling that she's been unable to achieve in church".[1][2]

Clareese discovers that the scriptures of her church are keeping her stuck in Every Tongue Shall Confess.[1][2]

Doris Is Coming is based in 1961 in Louisville, Kentucky, in which segregation was ending.[1][2]

The only male main character, Spurgeon, must deal with a father who bullies him and abandons him in a city in the story The Ant of the Self.[2]

In Our Lady of Peace, Lynnea teaches inner-city children after moving to Baltimore, Maryland, from Kentucky.[1]

Another girl named Dina visits Tokyo, Japan, to become rich in Geese.[1]

In Brownies, a Brownie troop with only black girls want to attack a white Brownie troop while they are camping, but they find out that life can be cruel to anyone upon discovering that the troop is for girls with a learning disability.[1]

Publication

Packer was given an advance for thousands of dollars and she promoted the book in a 13 city tour. The title story was in The New Yorker's 2000 issue of debut fiction.[3] The book deals with race, gender, identity, and the need for belonging.[4]

Reception

Bomb said, "This set of stories is a pleasure to dive into for the wit, the writing, the characters, and the novel plots, but most of all for the human truth that in the search for self-knowledge, we find we each defy category."[5] E. Ce Miller of Bustle wrote that Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is "the one book every woman should read in her 20s."[6] Packer was an honoree for the 2006 National Book Award for the 5 under 35 category due to the book.[7] The book won an Alex Award from the American Library Association in 2004.[8] It was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.[4] John Updike chose the book as a selection for the Today Show book club on NBC in 2003.[9] Gale published a study guide about the book.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ludwig, Jerome (March 27, 2003). "ZZ Packer". Chicago Reader. Retrieved January 9, 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Thompson, Doris (March 16, 2003). "Notorious in New Haven". New York Times. Retrieved January 9, 2022.
  3. ↑ Muhammad, Larry (March 29, 2003). "The ABC's on ZZ". The Courier-Journal.
  4. 1 2 3 Gale, C.L. A Study Guide for Z. Z. Packer's "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere". Short Stories for Students. Gale, Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1-4103-4466-3. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
  5. ↑ Ludwin, Victoria (April 1, 2003). "ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Victoria Ludwin". Bomb. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
  6. ↑ Miller, Ce (January 13, 2016). "The One Book Every Woman Should Read In Her 20s". Bustle. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  7. ↑ "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere". National Book Foundation. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
  8. ↑ "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere". American Library Association. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  9. ↑ Curtis, Kim (June 1, 2003). "'Drinking Coffee Elsewhere' earning accolades for author". Press and Sun-Bulletin.
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