num_pages: 265
description: Chosen by John Updike as a Today Show Book Club Pick. Already an award-winning writer, ZZ Packer now shares with us her debut, 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. We meet a Brownie troop of black girls who are confronted with a troop of white girls; a young man who goes with his father to the Million Man March and must decides where his allegiance lies; an international group of drifters in Japan, who are starving, unable to find work; a girl in a Baltimore ghetto who has dreams of the larger world she has seen only on the screens in the television store nearby, where the Lithuanian shopkeeper holds out hope for attaining his own American Dream.With penetrating insight that belies her youth—she was only nineteen years old when Seventeen magazine printed her first published story—ZZ Packer helps us see the world with a clearer vision. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a striking performance—fresh, versatile, and captivating. It introduces us to an arresting and unforgettable new voice.Brownies --Every tongue shall confess --Our Lady of Peace --The ant of the self --Drinking coffee elsewhere --Speaking in tongues --Geese --Doris is coming
language: English
title: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
titlecomplete: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
genres: Fiction, African American, Contemporary, Short Story Collection, Race, American, Literary Fiction, Adult Fiction, Literature, Short Stories
ratings_count: 7326
awards: awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Guardian First Book Award
category: Also Commended, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: California Book Award
category: First Fiction (Silver), awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: ALA Alex Award, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Hurston/Wright Legacy Award
category: Debut Fiction, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
publisher: Riverhead Books