DRINKING COFFEE ELSEWHERE Stories

ZZ Packer's story collection, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is one of the most heralded in recent years. The title story, which appeared in The New Yorker's debut fiction issue three years ago, focuses on Dina, a black Yale freshman engaged in "orientation games," group activities meant to promote bonding among students. In one such game Dina proclaims that if she were an inanimate object, she would choose to be a revolver a comment that transforms her from quiet honor student to dangerous outcast and ultimately to the realization that "'pretending' was what had got me this far." In Packer's stories, the protagonists, primarily young African-American women on the verge of some formative encounter, discover that they are outcasts, and that structuring their identity is more complicated than merely understanding the stereotypical difficulties associated with being black and female. They often pretend in order to get by or to get anywhere, then realize they're not where they wanted to be. Packer's beautifully constructed narratives and realistic dialogue mark this collection as the debut of an assured and original voice.