A wry and moving debut short story collection from an extraordinary new voice in American fiction, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere crackles with energy, wit and, ultimately, hope. ZZ Packer’s characters are all too human in their struggle to find their own place in the world and include the evangelical Sister Clarice, a group of vengeful Brownies, young Spurgeon Bivens, who has just bailed his father out of jail, and Dina, a college student who undergoes an emotional awakening.
‘There are all kinds of writers in this world but there are only a handful of natural ones…ZZ Packer is one of them. She doesn’t appear to struggle at any point- full-bodied character, honest dialogue, comic brio and that essential, basic human empathy-all of these are conjured by her musical prose and rendered without false notes. She writes a short story with more complexity and kindness than most people can muster in their creaking 500 page novels. It is the kind of brilliance for narrative that should make her peers envious and her readers very, very grateful.’ Zadie Smith