Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
by ZZ Packer
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Book Summary Information
Author: ZZ PackerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-02-03
ISBN: 1573223786
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9781573223782
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Book Review: A new voice reminiscent of Baldwin and O'Connor
Summary: 5 Stars
It's been several months since I read the eight stories in "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere," and I can still recall the precision and beauty of ZZ Packer's prose, the building tension in several scenes, and the uniqueness of the outsiders who populate her stories. Although hers is a vibrant, new voice all its own, Packer echoes the rawness of Baldwin's stories in "Going to Meet the Man," while her alienated protagonists recall the redemption-seekers of Flannery O'Connor's fiction. Like both of her literary predecessors, Packer doesn't always feel the need to elucidate why her characters behave as they do; instead, actions and their consequences are burdened by personal histories, human emotions, and social expectations that are often beyond explanation. "I don't know why I said it," Dina reflects in the title story. "Until that moment I'd been good in all the ways that were meant to matter."
What Dina said, during her college freshman orientation games, was that the one "inanimate object" she'd want to be is a revolver--a response that launches a chain of events that insures her status as an outcast. One imagines that if she had been a white, football-playing fraternity brother, her quip would have been taken as a cynical if inappropriate attempt at sarcasm. But she is a young black girl from a poor part of Baltimore, and her retort is filtered through the alien prep-school eyes of her new classmates and teachers. She is doomed not to fit in.
In "Brownies," another story with a similar theme, the tables are turned: a Brownie troop plans ways to taunt the summer camp's "Disney characters," a group of white girls with "complexions a blend of ice cream: strawberry, vanilla"--only to find that their would-be victims are not who they seem to be. In Packer's world, as in the real one, behavior is predicated not only by personal choices but also by social pressures, societal prejudices, and the near-inevitability of misapprehension.
In addition to the title story, there are two other stories here that rank among the best I've read in recent years. "Speaking in Tongues" describes a 14-year-old runaway who escapes to Atlanta from the confines of her religious rural upbringing, falls under the sway of a streetwalker and a hustler, and becomes part of their sensual, harrowing existence. The "Ant of the Self," the story from The New Yorker that introduced me to Packer's world several years ago, concerns a young man, Spurgeon, whose father, freshly bailed out of prison, corrals him on a journey to the Million Man March to sell exotic birds to the crowd (selling birds!?! --the eccentricities again evoke O'Connor). Here, an exasperated son's destiny is limited by his love-hate relationship with his father; it's easy enough for an "outsider" to say what Spurgeon should have done but family ties can mess up anything. (" 'Why you gotta act like everything I ask you to do is gonna kill you? You my son. I tell you to do something, you obey.' I do obey, and hate myself for it....")
I've outlined my favorites, but there's not a rotten apple in the bunch. Savored one at a time, they most clearly bear out Mavis Gallant's advice for readers: "Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait."
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