Staff Pick
I read this whole collection more or less by accident, as I originally only intended on browsing the book. ZZ Packer's style is well-crafted, her writing flawless; and the stories are vivid, almost like stored memories you're only now recalling. It's a damn fine debut. Recommended By Aubrey W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
With stories in
The New Yorker's debut fiction issue and in
The Best American Short Stories, 2000, and as the winner of a Whiting Writers' Award and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, ZZ Packer has already achieved what most writers only dream about-all prior to publication of her first book.
Now, in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, her impressive range and talent are abundantly evident. Packer dazzles with her command of language-surprising and delighting us with unexpected turns and indelible images, as she takes us into the lives of characters on the periphery, unsure of where they belong. With penetrating insight that belies her youth-she was only nineteen years old when Seventeen magazine printed her first published story-Packer takes us to a Girl Scout camp, where a troupe of black girls are confronted with a group of white girls, whose defining feature turns out to be not their race but their disabilities; to the Million Man March on Washington, where a young man must decide where his allegiance to his father lies; to Japan, where an international group of drifters find themselves starving, unable to find work.
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a striking debut-fresh, versatile, and captivating. It introduces us to an arresting and unforgettable new American voice.
Review
"Packer's debut collection reminds us that no stylistic tour de force or authorial gamesmanship, or flights of language can ground a story like a well-realized character. This is the old-time religion of storytelling, although Packer's prose supplies plenty of the edge and energy we expect from contemporary fiction." Jean Thompson, The New York Times Book Review
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"Highly personal yet socio-politically acute: a debut collection that cuts to the bone of human experience and packs a lasting wallop." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Packer's handling of race is consistently impressive....But without question Packer's strength is her characters, and when she's at her best she writes like a boxer, capturing everything she needs in rapid-fire sentences." Marc Nebitt, The Washington Post
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"The short stories in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere feel refreshingly subtle and unresolved....In the book's more organic pieces, Packer's characters feel inseparable from the messy sociopolitical landscape, feet firmly planted in our world." The Village Voice
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"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, Booklist
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"Packer's stories, by turns astringent, brutally honest and sometimes funny, offer readers slices of life..." Ayesha Court, USA Today
Review
"What a wonderfully frank, fearless, funny writer ZZ Packer is and how splendidly Drinking Coffee Elsewhere displays those qualities." Margot Livesey, author of Eva Moves the Furniture
Review
"She's a heck of a fine writer of rich, full, psychologically complex stories...and a wry sense of humor..." Stephen Dixon, author of I
About the Author
ZZ Packer is the author of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (2003). Frequently published in such journals as