Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

I have been reading African-American literature for about a year because I want to try to see and understand their culture. I am caucasian and have allowed myself to be limited in knowledge and acquaintance. After reading under 10 books by different African-American authors, I am starting to learn. This book was good for me because the short stories were on various subjects with the endings being similar. In 'my world' and what I read typically have neutral to good endings. I'm realizing this isn't true in the real world.

I bought this book in hopes that I could find a way to "get into" literary fiction. it didn't happen. As usual, this short story collection is a series of chronicles where the story line is vague or non-existent. It does, however, contain a plethora of painfully descriptive passages detailing anything from the shape of the clouds that day to the color of the socks of each character. To me, stories are supposed to have a beginning, a middle with a plot and definite closure. None of these elements are present in "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere." I've found this to be true of every piece of literary fiction I've read. If you like this kind of thing, you might enjoy this publication. ZZ has an entertaining way of laying out shoe sizes, road conditions, garment wrinkling patterns and dental descriptions though. Alas, none of them have anything to do with a story line of any kind. I've now officially given up on literary fiction. Congrats to ZZ Packer for being the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I guess I'm just a genre fiction kind of guy.

Z. Z. Packer’s stories remain timely. The experiences and feelings of her characters, especially involving religion, mirror my own. Highly recommended.

Exquisite writing, with wonderful sensitivity and a wide range of characters. Highly recommend!

Loved all the plots thought out the book .kept you intrigued and your imagination peaked. Chris to the author yes drink coffee.☺

ZZ Packer writes about young African-Americans struggling with identity and race. She is a fresh and exciting voice, who writes about being black in America with humor and compassion, while never compromising the humanity of her protagonists.The story "Brownies" is superb and deserves five stars, a story loaded with irony and insight. The other stores were very good, but a couple wandered a bit and lost focus.

People tend to have enough to read, so I rarely foist new things on my friends to add to their pile. But I've made repeated exceptions for ZZ Packer since discovering the title story of this collection several years ago, which sent me scurrying to the library to find whatever else she had written. These emotionally complex and gutwrenching stories showcase a variety of African-American characters struggling to break free of their mental prisons, with realistically mixed results. Like Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, race is a context but "on the lower frequencies" (and not so lower ones) the characters speak for all of us. Plus the stories are simply good reads - events move fast and the tension rarely lets up until the finish.Friends of the extraordinary, give this book a read!

Ordered on recommendation of bookclub. I am not fond of this author, her writing style or the contents of this book. Delivery and processing by Amazon excellent.

I heard about this book on the Backlisted podcast. Delighted to read a contemporary writer of such skill and precision. Gut wrenchingly funny and sad.

Stunning book full of incredible stories of great depth

Her stories are great but on the audio version much is lost on the reader's lack of sass and punch delivering the words. The narrator on her piece on American Short Stories audio version was terrific and added to the work.

Great short stories. Really enjoyed it