Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
"Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" by ZZ Packer is a compelling collection of eight short stories that focuses on the experiences of a new generation of middle-class African Americans. The narratives explore themes of identity and belonging, revealing the complexities faced by characters who feel caught between their cultural heritage and contemporary societal expectations. The stories, such as "Brownies" and the titular "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere," feature young African American protagonists grappling with their sense of self in various contexts, from summer camp to prestigious universities like Yale.
Packer's characters often navigate the challenges of being part of a demographic that straddles different worlds, reflecting on their racial and social identities in nuanced ways. Through humor and poignant moments, the stories address issues of race, class, and personal struggle. While the collection presents a range of vibrant characters, some critics note that not all stories achieve the same depth as the standout pieces. Overall, "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" serves as an insightful exploration of the lives of African Americans who historically have been overshadowed in literature, offering a fresh perspective on their diverse realities.
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
First published: 2003
Type of work: Short stories
Type of plot: Domestic realism
Time of work: 1960’s-1990’s
Locale: Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland; Louisville, Kentucky; Washington, D.C.; Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; Japan
Principal Characters:
Snot , the young girl who narrates “Brownies”Dina , an African American freshman at Yale University who later lives in JapanTia , a fourteen-year-old girl who runs away to find her mother in Atlanta, GeorgiaDezi , a manipulative drug dealer who takes Tia inLynnea , a young teacher in one of Baltimore’s toughest schoolsSheba , a six-foot resident of a home for girls who befriends LynneaSpurgeon , a high-school debating champ who takes his father to the Million Man MarchRay Bivins, Jr. , Spurgeon’s father, a former Black PantherClareese Mitchell , a cross-eyed choir member in an African American churchDoris Yates , an African American teenager at the beginning of the Civil Rights movement
The Stories
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a collection of eight stories that are less about people who have been disenfranchised because of race or economic status than they are about a new generation of middle-class African Americans who have previously been ignored because of attention paid to the children of the ghetto. Like immigrants, ZZ Packer’s characters are caught between an old world to which they feel they no longer belong and a new world that has not yet arrived.
For example, “Brownies,” whose narrator, nicknamed Snot, is a young African American girl at summer camp with her Brownie troop, begins as a typical race prejudice story. Snot’s friends vow to fight a troop of little white girls who have come to camp with complexions like a blend of strawberry and vanilla ice cream. When one of them hears a white girl use the hated “N word,” they talk tough about retaliation.
The title story, “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” focuses on a middle-class young African American woman named Dina who has entered her freshman year at Yale University. Impatient with politically correct counselors, she reluctantly plays a get-acquainted orientation game in which participants must say what inanimate object they would like to be. Just to fulfill white expectations, Dina says she would like to be a revolver.
“The Ant of the Self” is about a young African American named Spurgeon who is caught in the gap between the stereotypical African American world of an older generation and a new middle-class African American image in which racial identity seems less important. He has just bailed his father, an ex-Black Panther, out of jail after yet another drunk-driving arrest and wants to take him home. However, his father wants to go to Washington, D.C., for the Million Man March—not to assert his community with other African American men but rather to take advantage of their nostalgia for all things African by selling them his collection of exotic African birds.
The remaining stories include “Speaking in Tongues,” focusing on an African American girl who tries to find her mother, only to be exploited by a fast-talking ex-pimp; “Every Tongue Shall Confess,” about an evangelistic nurse pursued by a patient; “Our Lady of Peace,” about an African American teacher in a tough urban school who is befriended by one of her students; “Doris Is Coming,” featuring a teenage African American girl caught on the cusp of the Civil Rights movement in Louisville, Kentucky in 1961; and “Geese,” about Dina, the main character in the title story, who is down and out in Japan and who ultimately fails in her efforts to avoid falling into a black stereotype. These stories are competent, but they fail to create characters as interesting and engaging as those in “Brownies,” “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” and “The Ant of the Self.”
The Characters
Although the young African American girls in “Brownies” are hard to resist with their childlike streetwise talk, they are really middle-class kids, posturing the way they have seen others do. The story succeeds because it allows African American girls to make fun of white girls and talk tough about beating them up for using racial slurs, but since they are only small children at summer camp, it is all within a harmless, comic context.
Dina, in the title story, comes from a middle-class background in which she was an honor-roll student. However, at Yale she finds herself instantly transformed into a hard-bitten, recalcitrant kid. Dina insists that she likes being outcast and alone, but when an overweight white girl named Heidi seeks her advice and friendship, they become such constant companions that people being to think they are lovers. Like “Brownies,” “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” succeeds because it presents a rebellious African American who is not a streetwise tough but a middle-class good girl. Dina does not want to be a compliant African American, but she is not sure how to find a place for herself.
Critical Context
Packer’s rise to momentary media stardom began with the publication of the summer, 2000, special debut-fiction issue of The New Yorker. Accompanying her story “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” was a full-page photo of Packer sitting on some rough city steps beside a cracked, graffiti-covered wall, staring at the camera with a sullen, even angry, look. However, ZZ Packer is no child of the ghetto who has risen up shaking her fist in righteous anger at white economic oppression. Her parents were a middle-class small business owner and a schoolteacher. She is a Yale graduate who has also attended the prestigious Writing Seminar at Johns Hopkins University as well as the influential Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
After “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” saw print, Harper’s published Packer’s story “Brownies,” which was later chosen by E. L. Doctorow for the 2000 edition of Best American Short Stories. The buzz over Packer’s writing increased when Riverhead Books won a bidding war for her first book, paying her an advance of approximately $250,000. She went on a whirlwind thirteen-city book tour, with picture spreads appearing in Vogue and Oprah Winfrey’s magazine O. In May, 2003, John Updike picked her book for the Today Book Club.
Bibliography
Goldberg, Michelle. “Strangers in a Strange Land.” Newsday, March 9, 2003, p. D30. Goldberg argues that Packer is more attuned to her characters’ often self-sabotaging motivations than to the circus of their surroundings.
Packer, ZZ. “The Aerial View.” Interview by Cressida Leyshon. The New Yorker. November 25, 2002. www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/11/25/0211205on‗online only01. Packer discusses her efforts as an African American writer to create complex characters rather than simply representing her race. She says that she does not try to write as a member of her community but rather as an observer of it.
Packer, ZZ. “Author of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Talks with Robert Birnbaum.” Interview by Robert Birnbaum. Identity Theory, April 29, 2003. www.identitytheory .com. Packer talks about her education at Yale, Johns Hopkins, the University of Iowa, and Stanford, commenting on the writers’ workshop experience and how the writing world is moving closer to popular culture.
Thompson, Jean. “Notorious in New Haven.” Review of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, by ZZ Packer. The New York Times, March 16, 2003, Section 7, p. 7. In this appreciative review, Thompson focuses on Packer’s ability to create well-realized characters, especially those coming of age.
Wiegand, David. “Packer Blends Race, Lessons, and Craft.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 9, 2003, p. M1. Wiegand argues that Packer’s stories are political, meant to make a point. As a result of her preaching, he says, African American readers will have a different experience reading her stories than will white readers.