![]() That one detail changes the direction of the whole story, just like that. Arnetta was in the bathroom confronting Troop 909 when Laurel recognizes that “The girl sounded as though her tongue were caught in her mouth” and promoted her to walk in and it then comes out that Troop 909, while a group of White girls, was a group of girls with special needs. The other girls are waiting outside the bathroom for them to hear Arnetta’s cue to come in and help with the ambush. The twist comes when Arnetta has created the plan to ambush Troop 909 in the bathroom to “teach them a lesson”. Packer’s ability to give detail makes the story memorable as if the reader just watched a movie because it is so specific. Packer’s style of writing provides a lot of description that allows the reader to feel involved as if watching as a fly on the wall but at the same time allows the reader to take a step back and draw conclusions about the people in the story. Laurel doesn’t have much say in any of this her nickname is “snot” and has been since she was in the second grade which gives some clue as to what role she can and cannot play. These are also the girls that decided they were going to beat up the girls in Troop 909 once the rumor was started by Arnetta that she heard one of them call Daphne the N-Word. She describes the time that the word “caucasian” caught fire and provides ring-leader qualities to the girls Octavia and Arnetta. Packer’s descriptions provide visuals but also a more in-depth background and understanding of the events and the people involved.Īs the story continues Packer continues to write as Laurel and provides background about the girls in her troop in a school setting. Their complexions a blend of ice cream: strawberry and vanilla…” and goes into more detail describing down to the sleeping bags they brought and what that said about their parents. Packer drops the reader right in the middle of the story beginning on the second day of camp and describes Troop 909: “Troop 909 was doomed from the first day of camp they were white girls. The beginning of the story is full of descriptions. ![]() Throughout the story Packer writes in first person as Laurel and gives descriptions of the other girls in the troop providing anecdotes of past experiences and conversations that reveal their personalities. The story is about the troop of girls and their experience with White people and their experience with the N-word at Camp Crescendo when one member of the troop swears she heard a White girl in Troop 909 call her friend the N-word. Packer is a short story about Laurel, a young Black girl who is a member of an all girl’s troop that also happens to be an all Black girls troop in Atlanta. 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.Brownies by Z.Z. Now, in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, her impressive range and talent are abundantly evident. ![]() With stories in The New Yorker's debut fiction issue and in The Best American Short Stories, 2000, and as the winner of a Whiting Writers' Award and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, ZZ Packer has already achieved what most writers only dream about-all prior to publication of her first book. It introduces us to an arresting and unforgettable new voice. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a striking performance-fresh, versatile, and captivating. 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. 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 decide 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. 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. Summary: Already an award-winning writer, ZZ Packer now shares with us her long-awaited debut, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.
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