DRINKING COFFEE ELSEWHERE
ZZ PACKER is a recipient of a Whiting Writers’
Award and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’
Award, and was selected for the New Yorker’s debut fiction issue in 2002.
A graduate of Yale, she was a Jones lecturer at
Stanford University. She lives in the San Francisco
Bay area.
First published in Great Britain in 2004 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street,
Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This edition published in 2005
This digital edition first published in 2018 by Canongate Books
Originally published in the United States of America in 2003
by Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright © ZZ Packer, 2003
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Lyrics from “The Brownie Smile Song,” words and music by Harriet Haywood, and “Make New Friends,” from The Ditty Bag by Janet E. Tobitt, are used by permission of Girl Scouts of the USA.
Lines from “Autobiographia Literaria,” by Frank O’Hara, from his Collected Poems, copyright © 1971 by Maureen Granville-Smith, Administratrix of the Estate of Frank O’Hara, are used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 1 84195 556 8
eISBN 978 1 78689 694 0
Book design by Stephanie Huntwork
To my mother,Rose Northington Packer,who “made a way out of no way”
Acknowledgments
This collection would not have been possible without support from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the Wallace Stegner/Truman Capote Fellowship program, and the MacDowell Colony. Much love to my two families, the Northingtons and the Packers, both of whom raise storytelling to an art.
Many thanks to my mentors at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop: Frank Conroy for his ever-vigilant eye; Marilynne Robinson for her infinite wisdom; Stuart Dybek for his unflagging support and friendship; and James Alan McPherson, who is an example to us all.
I am forever in the debt of Connie Brothers, Deb West, and Paul Meintel, all of whom preserved my sanity and made Iowa a happier, brighter place. John Barth, Stephen Dixon, and Allen Grossman at Johns Hopkins University were incredible models of how to live a “writer’s life.” Special thanks to Francine Prose for her sharp wit and constant support.
John L’Heureux, Tobias Wolff, and Elizabeth Tallent at Stanford were invaluable to me in revising this manuscript. Thanks also to Gay Pierce, who kept the Stegner program running smoothly.
My thanks to friends and peers who have read these stories in their numerous incarnations: Julie Orringer, Edward Schwartz-child, Adam Johnson, Bridget Garrity, Doug Dorst, Ron Nyren, Malinda McCollum, Katherine Noel, Lysley Tenorio, Jack Livings, Otis Haschenmeyer, Rick Barot, Jane Rosenzweig, Carrie Messenger, Brian Teare, and the glorious Salvatore Scibona.
Thanks to Mara Folz for being my first reader and fan; to Felicia Ward for those many “writing dates.” Faith Adiele, LJ Jesse, Angela Pneuman, Cate Marvin, and my sister Jamila are the best friends a girl can have.
Special thanks to the fine editors at The New Yorker, Cressida Leyshon and Bill Buford, who took a chance on a young unknown; to Colin Harrison and Barbara Jones at Harper’s; and last but not least, to the wise and intrepid Lois Rosenthal at Story.
Finally, heartfelt thanks to the wonderful Eric Simonoff, who does triple duty as agent, reader, and friend; to Venetia van Kuffeler, the fab assistant to my editor at Riverhead, Cindy Spiegel, whose time, patience, and skill made this book what it is; and to Michael Boros, without whose love I wouldn’t be.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following magazines, where these stories first appeared, some in a slightly different form: Harper’s: “Brownies”; Ploughshares: “Every Tongue Shall Confess”; Story: “Our Lady of Peace”; The New Yorker: “The Ant of the Self,” “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”; Zoetrope All-Story: “Doris Is Coming.”
“Brownies” also appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2000; “Our Lady of Peace” in Symphony Space’s Selected Shorts; “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” in Here Lies, edited by David Gilbert; “Speaking in Tongues” in The Workshop: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, edited by Tom Grimes. “Geese” originally appeared in Twenty-five and Under.
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