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Title: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer ISBN: 1-57322-234-8 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 10 March, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.21 (34 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: ZZ Packer Is The One To Watch
Comment: ZZ Packer is young and already a very gifted writer. Just read the jacket on her collection of short stories, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. The girl has already garnered more awards, prizes, and accolades than a lot of writers do in their entire careers.
And her writing shows why. As an African American woman, I have to say it's wonderful to finally read fiction by another black woman that covers territory besides the worn-out male/female relationship. Black or white, chick lit is pretty formulaic stuff that grows old very fast.
But ZZ (if I may) covers vast territory in her stories. Childhood friendships; betrayal; racial conflict and the individual (and how friendship overcomes); international travel and finding yourself not only somewhere else, but someone else; black church life and the deceit that often accompanies it (white churches are no different, BTW). This girl's language and dialog are authentic, and nothing is superfluous in her stories. She uses irony with great skill and paints pictures that place the reader squarely in front of the action. We see hope, compassion, humility, loss, and triumph here. And it's all written into captivating stories about people and situations we've known or been a part of.
Here's hoping Ms. Packer doesn't lose interest in writing. I can't wait to read her first novel. I just hope she doesn't lower herself to chick lit. That would be a colossal waste of her talents. But somehow, I don't think she'll have to scrape the bottom of any literary barrels for a very long time to come. Keep your eye on this girl. ZZ Packer is the one to watch.
Rating: 5
Summary: Personal and yet universal stories from a fresh perspective
Comment: 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: 4
Summary: a fresh and exciting voice in comtemporary black fiction
Comment: 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.
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Title: Getting Mother's Body : A Novel by Suzan-Lori Parks ISBN: 1400060222 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: How to Breathe Underwater: Stories by JULIE ORRINGER ISBN: 1400041112 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 02 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: The Clothes They Stood Up In and The Lady in the Van (Today Show Book Club #5) by Alan Bennett, Alan Bennett ISBN: 0812969650 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Known World by Edward P. Jones ISBN: 0060557540 Publisher: Amistad Press Pub. Date: 14 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Today Show Book Club #13) by Mark Haddon ISBN: 0385512104 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 31 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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