51 pages • 1 hour read
ZZ PackerDrinking Coffee Elsewhere
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Story Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaThemes
The African American Perspective
At the beginning of the collection, the author quotes Roots by Alex Haley: “Join me in the hope that this story of our people can help to alleviate the legacies of the fact that preponderantly the histories have been written by the winners” (xix). Since most of the literary canon is written by white authors, black voices are drowned out or silenced by history. The stories in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere are about average African American people in the United States. Their stories are ordinary and sometimes anti-climactic. The characters try and often fail at their objectives as many of them are alienated, learning to define their own identities and their places in the world in relation to blackness and whiteness.
Alex Haley’s Roots is a generational story about the history of a black family beginning with American slavery. Conversely, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is about the loss of familial roots and missing family members whose voices died or disappeared with them. Each of the main characters experiences isolation in some way. Many, such as Spurgeon (“The Ant of the Self”), Dina (“Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”), and Doris (“Doris is Coming”) are the only African Americans in predominantly white schools. Others, such as Octavia (“Brownies”), Sheba (“Our Lady of Peace”), and Tia (“Speaking in Tongues”) are missing parents or families who have abandoned them. Isolation is a method of survival for those who feel different from those around them.
While most of the stories take place in the 1990s, the last story brings readers to 1961 during the civil rights movement. Each previous story ends with some level of disappointment or disillusionment for the protagonist, but “Doris is Coming” ends with a small but significant success. The title suggests that Doris will only grow and become bolder and more active in the fight for civil rights. The story speaks to the resilience of the black community and how strong people can be when they work together instead of isolating. It also reminds the reader that those who came later are the descendants of those freedom fighters, who were also ordinary people.
Religion and Rigidity
Nearly all the stories in this collection reflect the role of religion in the black community and the ways in which religion can lead to rigidity that the younger generation seeks to escape. In “Every Tongue Shall Confess,” Clareese feels obligated to endure mistreatment at her church and her job because of her commitment to her religion. Tia in “Speaking in Tongues” runs away from home and into the path of danger because she becomes disillusioned with the church and the religion that she has believed so strongly her entire life. In “Doris is Coming,” Doris is afraid to protest and join the civil rights movement because the reverend at her church tells her she is not allowed. Christianity in particular becomes a substance that placates the oppressed, as evidenced by “Doris is Coming,” in which Doris’s church believes that they are finally going to experience the Rapture.
While Christianity was forced on African Americans during slavery, the stories also mention the Nation of Islam, a religious group created in the 1930s to empower black men and women. In “The Ant of the Self,” Christianity and the Nation of Islam meet when both Louis Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson speak to the crowd at the Million Man March. Dezi (“Speaking in Tongues”), who wears a Christian cross around his neck, tells Tia, “Well, you know what Brother Farrakhan says: the black man is god” (173). Even from the first moment Tia meets Dezi and he pays for her food, Tia confuses Dezi with God, only to discover later that he is only manipulating her. Religion is a way for men to assert power and authority over women.
For the women in the stories, religion holds them hostage through the strict rules of propriety and gender roles. The men in leadership at Clareese’s church (“Every Tongue Will Confess”) have the power to demand Clareese’s time and obedience, or in the case of Deacon McCreedy, to sexually assault Clareese with impunity. When Sheba becomes pregnant (“Our Lady of Peace”), it’s implied that she is going to be forced to give birth to a baby she does not want because she lives in an imposing Catholic group home. However, in the last story, “Doris is Coming,” Doris manages to break free of the church’s control, demonstrating that it’s possible to defy the rules and make change.
Coming of Age and the Loss of Innocence
Each story in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere centers on the protagonist’s loss of innocence or coming of age, even though these moments of maturation are typically fraught with disillusionment and disappointment. At the end of “Brownies,” Laurel realizes that racism and cruelty are part of a cycle that is perpetuated even by those she loves and admires. Lynnea (“Our Lady of Peace”) loses her optimism about the potential of her students to learn and grow in her classes and gives up on her own future when she leaves the scene of the accident. Tia (“Speaking in Tongues”) discovers the cruelty of men and her own vulnerability as she narrowly escapes Dezi and must accept that her mother will never come back to be her parent. She begins the story as a child who feels immature because she has not spoken in tongues with the others at her church but runs away to a city where she learns what it really means to be an adult.
For the characters in the stories, growth means discovering parts of their identities that they’ve tried to suppress. Clareese hears Cleophus’s music (“Every Tongue Shall Confess”), and even though she thinks that the blues are sinful, she must admit that she likes it. Spurgeon (“The Ant of the Self”) spends his life trying to be the opposite of his father and denying any part of him that he inherits from Ray—but at the end of the story, Spurgeon finds himself drunk and alone, 700 miles from home with no car or money. He misses school for the first time in his life and must confront the possibility that he could end up like his father. In “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” Dina isn’t comfortable with the idea of being a lesbian, but she begins to have feelings for Heidi. Instead of allowing herself to grow and accept her shifting identity, Dina pushes Heidi away.
Coming of age also centers on the body for the women in the stories. Clareese (“Every Tongue Shall Confess”) complains about the suffering of menstruation and the pain of being a woman of childbearing years who isn’t treated like a woman who deserves to have her body respected. Sheba (“Our Lady of Peace”) changes when she becomes pregnant, knowing that her childhood is over whether she wants to be a mother or not. Tia (“Speaking in Tongues”) experiences the sexual advances of an adult man and imagines for a while that she is adult enough to handle them. Although she manages to escape further sexual assault, Tia’s understanding of the world around her changes.
