Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Rating:
Summary: a fresh and exciting voice in comtemporary black fiction
Review: The stories in ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere brims with rich, wonderful prose and incredibly interesting characters. There's a bleakness to Packer's stories in a Flannery O'Connor-ish sort of way. Characters sometimes find themselves in depressing situations with endings that leave it open to the question: What happens next? That's the only problem I found with many of the stories in this collection. They're all good but feel as if they're missing something. I'm not quite sure what the "something" is but with many of the stories, Speaking In Tongues or Geese for example, it feels like something more should be there. Something meatier, if you will. Not to say that all the stories are like that. Brownies is by far the standout here with one of the best surprise twists I've encountered in a short story in a long time. I also enjoyed The Ant of the Self. Even though the main character allows his father to walk all over him, if you read carefully you can understand why.

This is an excellent collection of contemporary black fiction by an immensely talented writer. Packer eschews the girlfriend/black-men-are-no-good mentality of a lot of comtemporary black writers like McMillan and shies away from profound and cerebral writing like Walker or Morrison. Packer's tell-it-like-it-is writing skills are admirable yet sometimes come across as diamonds in the rough. I anxiously look forwards to her first full length novel. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere along with Parks' Getting Mother's Body are two shining examples of new comtemporary black fiction which makes me excited about the future of black writing and has motivated me to get some of my own black fiction out there as well.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely perfect
Review: there's nothing to not love in this collection from packer, not a sentence to stumble over, not a story to discount. absolutely brillant.

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Summary: Personal and yet universal stories from a fresh perspective
Review: This debut collection of eight short stories brings a fresh voice to modern fiction. The author, a young African American woman, tells some tales that seem deeply personal and yet are universal. Her stories are peopled with young black Americans, all struggling with their identities. Some of them are church going and dealing with their spiritual growth. Others are college educated and dealing with their place in a white world. One is living in Japan but the others are from Baltimore or Georgia. All have a way of looking at the world that is unique to the black experience. The reader meets a Brownie troop in Georgia, a young woman student at Yale struggling with her sexual identity and a young man whose father convinces him to go to the Million Man March in Washington. We visit the bars and back streets of Baltimore. We attend more than one church service. And we get to know an innocent church girl searching for her mother and finding out more than she ever wanted to know about the sleazy side of life.

Ms. Packer writes with an economy of words and a discerning eye for the telling detail. She paints these short little slices of life with bright strokes, her words making real the world she describes. I enjoyed each of her stories. They were much too short, however. And some of them didn't even seem finished. Always, I wanted more but had to keep reminding myself that this is just her first book. Hopefully, the next one will be a novel.

Rating:
Summary: No need to think twice
Review: When ZZ Packer writes her first novel, I'll be standing in line with my $25 or $26. This work of short story literature was worthy of my time. The first short, Brownies, transported me back into time into the early 70's when I wore my brownie uniform, and went through similar experiences. The Ant of the Self was an extremely moving story about father and son. This story, I wanted to continue. I applaud ZZ Packer's prose! These are stories you will read again and again.

Rating:
Summary: fantastic debut
Review: Z. Z. Packer has all the right credentials for a young writer: degrees from Yale and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, a Stegner Fellowship, The New Yorker as her first publication, a contribution to The Best American Short Stories, and even a catchy, initialized name. It turns out that Z. Z. is what she's been called by family as long as she can remember and that all those blessings from the gods of the literary world have not made generic the intricacies of Packer's writing. This debut short story collection leaves readers contemplating the relationship of the despair and hope that collide as we become individuals in our world.

This book is a fantastic debut of eight stories, all except one of which runs between 20 and 30 pages. This length allows Packer the patience to let plot and character develop together. The longest story, "Speaking in Tongues," runs more than 50 pages to follow the church-going Tia on her search for her mother in the far-away streets of Baltimore, where, coincidentally, Packer taught in the public school system.

The strongest, most far-reaching, vivid stories are the opening "Brownies," the title story, and the closing "Doris Is Coming." All three are centered on young, female, African-American characters who struggle to come to terms with the contradictions they see in the society around them. In "Brownies," the narrator, nicknamed Snot ever since she sneezed on a classmate, is part of a group of Brownie Scouts who plan an ambush on another Brownie troop because a girl in Troop 909 has called the quiet Daphne a [bad name.] In "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere," the narrator begins her life at Yale by telling the orientation counselor and the dean things they don't like to hear and by meeting up with voluptuous Heidi, who prefers to be called Henrik. In the final story of the collection, which is set in 1961, Doris questions civil disobedience. All three central characters must decide for themselves what appropriate and necessary action to take when they find they don't quite fit into their surroundings.

Z. Z. Packer is now working on a novel about the Buffalo Soldiers. She probably has an impressive career ahead of her, but readers have no need to wait--her debut story collection contains the writing of an already-mature and thoughtful writer. Packer's stories are polished and cohesive in surprising, complicated ways and are a pleasure to read and ponder.

Rating:
Summary: Award Winning Short Stories
Review: Z.Z. Packer has won many awards and accolades for her short stories. They have been featured in various magazines and print media. In her offering of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, the reader is treated to a compilation of eight short stories. Each story depicts a young person in turmoil, learning a lesson or seeking an answer to life's questions.

In Speaking In Tongues, young Tia runs away from her overly strict aunt and church to search for her mother in Atlanta. As with most runaways, she is easily targeted by an area pimp. However her values forces her to fight her way out of his grasp, though there are close calls when it looked as if she would falter. In Brownies, a group of young girl scouts, lead by bullies Arnetta and Octavia, seeks to fight a white Brownie troop who are also at camp due to trumped up charges that they called one of the girls the "N" word. Only they find out the group is made up of developmentally disabled Brownies. The Ant of the Self is the only story featuring a male main character. Spurgeon can barely stand to be in the presence of his father, Ray Bivens, Jr. After bailing his father out of jail, Spur is attempting to drive him back to Indiana when Ray coerces him into driving to Washington, DC to the Million-Man March. Spur would rather be back at school participating in the debate team competition. Even after hearing the speeches at the March, Spur and his father still can not see eye to eye and can not improve their relationship.

Reading a collection of short stories is a rare experience for me, but this was an enjoyable one. Each offering is complete and as a reader I was satisfied with each story; not needing them to be any longer or wishing they were a complete book. Each short story offers a lesson and a different perspective on life. Though many of the characters are rural women with very strict religious backgrounds, the author does a wonderful job of developing them all with their own taste of individuality. This book is highly recommended.

Jeanette
APOOO BookClub
Motown Review Book Club

Rating:
Summary: I PREDICT...These 2 Women
Review: Z.Z. PACKER VS. KOLA BOOF.

TWO NEW BLACK WOMAN AUTHORS, TWO SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS.

AND...THEIR "DUET" APPEARANCE IN YET A THIRD SHORT STORY COLLECTION.

I've read two masterful short story collections in the last 7 days, both by new up and coming Black Women writers (Z.Z. Packer's awesomely nuanced "Drinking Coffee" and Kola Boof's disturbing "Long Train to the Redeeming Sin"), and I find it downright painful to say which one I like better. Both collections, to me, are masterpieces.

Why am I mentioning these two very different women in the same breath? KEEP READING and you'll find out!!

This sensible rainy day collection by Z.Z. Packer is much more publicized by the mainstream media and known to the public, but I can't say that all the praise and adulation isn't well deserved. Z.Z. Packer writes better than Kola Boof, I think, in that she's more focused, professionally trained and clinical. Each story in "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" is really rendered as a slice of real life, the author's personal views seeming to be cleansed from the canvas so that the nuances and absurdities of life can seep through, very suttle yet very powerfully. It's amazing how skillful and calm Packer's writing is considering the ferocity of the inner themes, but she pulls it off with such a masterful ease that you almost feel that you're reading a hybrid of Hemingway and Alice Walker with a little Percival Everett (whom I love!) mixed in.

My favorite story, the one that sticks with me, is the one about the little prejudiced black girls. It's a hoot!

"Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" is a calm, subdued but very powerfully written debut and I look forward to her upcoming novel about Buffalo Soldiers.

As for Kola Boof's "Long Train to the Redeeming Sin", all I can say is WOW. It's hard to describe the book because the author is so non-author-like. Unlike Packer, Kola Boof is from Africa and was never formally educated. Kola Boof's style is totally unorthodox and preachy in a sense, but then so earthy and truthful and emotional in another sense that you simply cannot look away from her creations. She writes like a singer. Her collection is powerful like Packer's "Drinking Coffee"--but ultimately more passionate and shocking. These stories of African women facing issues like skin color prejudice, hair anxiety and genital mutilation and rape by white colonizers is handled so sweeping and matter-of-factly and with such authority that of the two collections, I have to give Kola Boof's the nod for being more unforgettable.

THE REAL TREAT...is that both these two black women writers appear together in the very hip, witty short story collection "POLITICALLY INSPIRED" (edited by Stephen Elliot), showcasing a two very different stories, that somehow (to me), resonate with the same level of consciousness and sadness about one theme--"death and loss".

Kola Boof's story in "POLITICALLY INSPIRED" is the more showy and adventurous one, and actually, it flat out satisfied me more than Packer's contribution, but the voices of the two writers continues to intrigue me as they are both young black women, new on the scene and much talked about. It will be fun to see which of these girls--Z.Z. Packer, Suzan Lori Parks, Kola Boof or ZADIE SMITH takes over the mantle from Alice Walker and Toni Morrison.

If you haven't guessed yet, I'm PREDICTING that the classy, somber Z.Z. Packer and the provocative, wild and mysterious Kola Boof are the clear and present frontrunners. They're both AWESOME and unique, but also seem to write from some driven inner voice, politically, sexually and racially, much like Morrison and Walker once did.

Anyone who reads "Drinking Coffee" and "Long Train to the Redeeming Sin" will see what I mean.











Rating:
Summary: Disappointingly uneven
Review: Z.Z. Packer's story collection - a member of the Today Show's book club - gets off to a great start. 'Brownies' and 'Every Tongue Shall Confess' rank high among my very favorite short stories. Both are excellent parables of faith, prejudice, religion, and the impulsive nature of youth. Both stories also use role reversal to interesting effect and leave you with interesting questions to consider. 'Our Lady of Peace', the third story in the collection, is also a triumph of writing but is unfortunately hampered by a sudden, confusing ending that doesn't satisfy the build-up or give the reader much sense of what happens next. Then comes 'The Ant of the Self' - and this is where Packer's book goes south. It is impossible to see why the narrator of this story does the things that he does - or why he starts out so strong and determined but winds up repeatedly allowing his deadbeat father to walk all over him and screw things up. The change makes absolutely no sense and leaves the story frustrating. 'Drinking Coffee Elsewhere' regains some of the book's initial charm but 'Speaking in Tongues' takes it right back down. Again it is the maddening choices of its very young main character that do it. Why a girl ostensibly looking for her mother would CHOOSE to repeatedly place herself into incredibly dangerous situations with a controlling pimp with aspirations of molestation is woefully unclear . 'Geese' is an improvement but can't help but suffer the same problem. The characters find themselves in incredibly dire situations but basically let disaster keep knocking on their door. 'Doris Is Coming' is a mediocre story about a girl who wants to join the black power movement though her church will not condone it. Ultimately 'Drinking Coffee Elsewhere' is an uneven collection of stories with two incredible highs and some dismal lows.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect Powerful Prose
Review: Z.Z.Packer's much-anticipated short story collection is a celebration of prose perfection. Her critically acclaimed short stories are action packed slices of American, edgy and provocative portrayals of life. Her stories project real people having real issues. "Brownies" is about a Brownie troop of Black girls who are confronted by a white girl troop. "Our Lady of Peace" explores the deterioration of the public school system, while six other stories haunt your soul. I love that!
Her command of the English language is poured into every paragraph. Reading her work gives me more respect for the writing craft. It is a skillful art form that requires study and thought, which proves my point that not anyone who can put pen to paper deserves to be called a writer. Packer's works make that fact evident and makes me want to work on my own re-writes.
If you want to delve into a richly, intoxicating book, then this one is for you. Your five senses will be moved by each story and your intellect, intuition and heart will be challenged. My favorite passage comes from "Our Lady of Peace":
But any place was better than Odair County, Kentucky. She'd hated how everyone their oozed out their words, and how humble everyone pretended to be...Her [Lynnea] family was one of four black families in the county, and if another white person ever told her how "interesting" her hair was, or how good it was that she didn't have to worry about getting a tan- ha ha- or asked her opinion anytime Jesse Jackson farted, she'd strangle them.
I gave this collection 5 pens because it is brilliant without any flaws, worthy of anyone's library. This book is a classic of which I'm sure my three-year-old daughter will have to read in English literature some day. Wonderful!

Dee Y. Stewart
R.E.A.L. Reviewers


Rating:
Summary: Perfect Powerful Prose
Review: Z.Z.Packer's much-anticipated short story collection is a celebration of prose perfection. Her critically acclaimed short stories are action packed slices of Americana, edgy and provocative portrayals of life. Her stories project real people having real issues.

"Brownies" is about a Brownie troop of Black girls who are confronted by a white girl troop. "Our Lady of Peace" explores the deterioration of the public school system, while six other stories haunt your soul. I love that!

Her command of the English language is poured into every paragraph. Reading her work gives me more respect for the writing craft. It is a skillful art form that requires study and thought, which proves my point that not anyone who can put pen to paper deserves to be called a writer.

If you want to delve into a richly, intoxicating book, then this one is for you. Your five senses will be moved by each story and your intellect, intuition and heart will be challenged. I feel this collection is brilliant without any flaws, and worthy of anyone's library. This book is a classic. Wonderful!

Dee Y. Stewart

R.E.A.L. Reviewers