ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere_In Jeopardy of Failing to Rise_April 13, 2016_Emily Shwake
- 2. Shwake 1
And sometimes we fail to walk the air.
--- Amiri Baraka
Foreword: The Importance of Contemporary Voices
After browsing through countless sets of poetry, blazing through heavy novels, and
examining every literary magazine on the shelf for the inspiration I needed to write my
Honors’ Thesis, I picked up Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer on a whim. Maybe I was
just tired of searching, but I landed on that blue book with the delicate white title scrawled
across the front and I somehow knew what I would be inside. I flipped open to the title
story, read the first sentence, and knew I had found what I had been looking for. Packer
made me feel like a friend she was telling a story to in confidence. She winked through
biting sarcasm and shouted her fearlessness through a chink in the wall. The serendipity of
that moment only revealed itself after I had spent months with the book and knew I had
barely scratched the surface. Fanned open from overused and littered with notes scrawled
in the margins, my copy of that pretty blue book now reflects what is inside: a dilapidated
beauty full of wisdom and experience.
ZZ Packer was born Zuwena Packer in Chicago, Illinois in 1973. She spent most of
her early years in Atlanta, Georgia and Louisville, Kentucky. After receiving a BA from Yale
and an MA from Johns Hopkins, she taught high school for two years before committing to
her writing career and pursuing her MFA at Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She remarks that her
experience in Iowa was unnerving because “It’s predominantly white. And it’s homogenous
in this way that goes beyond race” (Identity Theory). Finally, she was a Stegner Fellow, so
acted as Jones Lecturer at Stanford University. Packer emerged as a promising young
- 3. Shwake 2
writer of the twenty-first century when she appeared in The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 Issue
in 2010. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is Packer’s first book, a PEN/Faulkner finalist, and a New
York Times Notable Book.
The four stories I discuss were published individually before being included in this
set. The New Yorker published the title story, “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” in 2003 and it
soon received several awards. “Every Tongue Shall Confess” appeared in Ploughshares,
“Doris is Coming” in Zoetrope All-Story, and “Speaking in Tongues” in The Workshop: Seven
Decades of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, edited by Tom Grimes.
The compilation of short stories introduces eight young but exceptionally self-aware
African-Americans—seven female and one male—who, through several seemingly
pedestrian trials, come to realize that without supportive communities, they are unable to
reach their potential as exceptional individuals. Their struggles reveal the dangers inherent
within modern-day marginalization; no matter how innocuous the microaggressions and
subtle inequities seem, Packer reveals the damage that bubbles underneath the surface. All
of her characters are flawed and broken. Their mistakes are both a result of sociopolitical
situation as well as their very human selfishness. She does not maintain the same hopeful
tone as many of her predecessors. There is no magic in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere; Packer’s
stories echo neither the passionate march of Sula1 nor the resolve of Janie’s2 self-
actualization. Instead, Packer captures the trivial disappointments of pedestrian lives
without minimizing the depth of each individual experience.
1 From Toni Morrison’s Sula
2 From Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
- 5. Shwake 4
reading and support him in his reconciliation with home in a way that allows him to be true
to his personal values and stubborn resilience against the normative.3 Since this genre
emerges at times of great reform, children represent an optimistic promise of potential for
the future. Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks and Go Tell it on the Mountain by James
Baldwin were both published in 1953, immediately preceding several huge successes
within the Civil Rights Movement. John Grimes in the latter story is a fourteen-year-old boy
who was able to come to terms with his sexuality and his abusive and dominating father
with the help of his mentor, Elisha. Maud Martha pursues her academic ambitions though
she eventually settles into her prescribed position as mother and wife. Though her story
seems to end less bitterly than Packer’s stories, the suppressed rage evidenced in the last
chapter supports Packer’s awareness of the discrepancies within the common
Bildungsroman. In White Boy, Shuffle, Gunnar Kaufman is able to bind the black community
together against the oppression of the LAPD with his poetic prowess. Published in 1996,
the book followed the LA Riots of 1992.
Similarly to those of a traditional Bildungsroman, the protagonists of Packer’s
stories are strikingly intuitive. Within their communities, they experience feelings of
isolation and restriction of their creative potential. Instead of finding enlightenment when
journeying outside of these spaces, however, the outside world proves to be just as
inhospitable to his or her ambitious thinking. The adults of their community fail to
understand the qualms of the protagonists and, in consequence, discourage any kind of
possibility of internal triumph. While a character of the Bildungsroman typically develops
into a hero, most of Packer’s eight protagonists fail to reach that destiny. The conventions
3 Buckley, Jerome Hamilton. 1974. Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press.
- 6. Shwake 5
of the “novel of formation” are distorted into a pattern of self-destruction.4 Because the
adult figures do not offer solace from the feelings they internalize or even any kind of
understanding of the issues they face, these misfits are left to bury their feelings even
further until the pressures externalize in a transgressive, even dangerous way. Instead of
confronting the perpetrators of their pain, these misfits displace their anger and lash out
against undeserving and often similarly marginalized individuals.
2. Inability to Articulate
The title story, “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” follows Dina, a young woman from an
economically impoverished neighborhood of Baltimore, as she attends her first year at Yale
University. Though she seems to have overcome her poverty by attending an Ivy League
school, her grief over losing her mother to kidney failure and her rage and feelings of
incongruity to those around her undermine her personal and even academic success.
The Baltimore neighborhood that Dina grows up in is “antagonistic” toward her
voracious reading habits. If one paid too much attention to books or learning, “It meant
you’d rather submit to the words of some white dude than shoot the breeze with your
neighbors” (131). I do not think this reflects antipathy toward learning, but pessimism
toward the possibility of upwards mobility because of the education institution. Black pop
culture often complains of impoverished neighborhoods being unsupportive of their
4 Buckley, Jerome Hamilton. 1974. Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press.
- 7. Shwake 6
academic members.5 However, the Vox article “‘Acting white’: the most insidious myth
about black kids and achievement” cites several studies that show that academic success
does not stigmatize academically successful black students any more than their white
counterparts. Rather, intelligence in general is socially stigmatizing simply because the
interests and thought processes of bookish students do not match those of their peers.
Growing up, Dina was misunderstood for these reasons, so she learned to keep silent even
when around students who could possibly offer the emotional and intellectual support that
her mother—and the rest of her community—could not.
Though Dina’s mother is a source of love and support, she cannot be the mentor
Dina needs because she cannot understand her. When Dina tries to relay what she learned
on a school trip to the aquarium, her mother neither matches her daughter’s excitement,
nor does she seem to comprehend the facts she rattles off. “She looked like a tourist who'd
asked for directions to a place she thought was simple enough to get to only to hear a series
of hypothetical turns, alleys, one-way streets. Her response was to nod politely at the
perilous elaborateness of it all; to nod in the knowledge that she would never be able to get
where she wanted to go” (135). It is almost as if Dina is speaking a language her mother
cannot process. The gaze of complete confusion marks a barrier that neither Dina nor her
mother can cross. The memory appears in a dream, which shows how deeply Dina
internalizes the isolation of the moment.
Growing up for so long in silence, Dina is unprepared to properly communicate her
feelings when the opportunity arises. She should be able to voice her need for support to
5 In the 2015 Sundance film Dope, for example, the three protagonists are “always getting ridiculed by their
peers because they’re into white shit, like skateboards, manga comics, Donald Glover, and for listening to
white shit like TrashTalk, TV On The Radio, and for doing white shit like getting good grades and applying to
college.”
- 8. Shwake 7
her similarly academically inclined peers at Yale University.6 Instead, she expresses herself
through anger which is read as dangerous instead of a reaction to her grief. During an
orientation game in which each freshman identifies with an inanimate object, Dina chooses
a revolver. Though it was a “recalcitrant” thing to say (as Dina calls it), it is an expression of
her rage at a world that she feels disconnected from. Instead of recognizing it as such, the
counselor and her peers are repelled by the violence of her statement: “The black guy
cocked his head and frowned, as if the beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks of his experiment had
grown legs and scurried off” (119). His misunderstanding and even aversion toward her
oddity pushes Dina even further out of the margins. Her cry for help goes unheeded and
she is isolated even more.
When the school tries to help by providing compulsory therapy with the campus
psychiatrist, Dr. Raeburn, Dina reacts by pushing away even more. After her Dean
reprimands her and her roommate moves out, Dina adopts recalcitrance as a mask that
buffers the pain of her isolation. She is successful in repelling the patronizing help of the
dorm counselors that check on her by sitting naked in front of the door whenever they pop
in. When the black students try to provide her with community, she is rude and hostile to
their advances.
Dina’s rejection of the black community at Yale is, perhaps, the most curious
instance of her self-exile, but it is clear that she feels out of place because of their economic
status: “Most of them were from New York and tried hard to pretend that they hadn’t gone
to prep schools. And there was something pitiful in how cool they were” (121). She felt out
of place in Baltimore because no one appreciated learning like she did; at a place where
6 This is probably the point when Dina’s story becomes the most autobiographical as Packer graduated from
Yale in 1994. The commentary is much more direct and timely than in her other stories.
- 9. Shwake 8
everyone appreciates learning, none are of the same socioeconomic status. Her story of the
“boy with the nice shoes” demonstrates how much her poverty affects her self-esteem.
After using food stamps to buy groceries, the boy—named Cecil—offers to help her carry
the bags back to her home. She runs away because she does not want “someone with such
nice shoes” to see where she lives. In this story, the main character does not feel
marginalized by race but by financial disparity.
Dina’s infatuation with the Frank O’Hara poem “Autobiographia Literaria” explains
her aloof behavior. The speaker expresses disinterest in connecting with others, but also
extreme loneliness. Dina purposefully avoids human contact because her past has instilled
the futility of trying to make others understand. She embraces isolation and characterizes
herself as a “misanthrope,” but her relationship with Heidi—an overweight white woman
from Canada—forces her to reckon with the true nature of her isolation. In her master’s
thesis, Katy Howe argues that, “Because of her displaced or marginalized status, [Dina]
develops rigid defenses that protect against the pain of rejection but that also prevent
connection or relationship” (3). Though many have failed to offer Dina support when she
needs it most, her habit of bristling to kindness prevents her from ever forming a successful
connection. Her nonchalant attitude impedes anyone from truly understanding her or
being able to offer support.
The reclusive speaker in the O’Hara poem is able to find joy in the comfort of writing
poetry. Dina remarks, “I knew the poem because it was one of the few things I’d been
forced to read that I wished I’d written myself” (121). Dina clearly craves that ability to
regain her power and soothe her loneliness through writing. She and Heidi also read The
Anxiety of Influence, a book that discusses the hindrance on a poet’s ability to write. Dina
- 10. Shwake 9
wants to attend to the inspiration of her isolation but the silencing on the part of her
community—both in Baltimore and at Yale—stifles her ability to articulate. These
challenges of miscommunication smother the little hope she has left after losing her
mother. Writing poetry is the means to an answer that Dina has already given up on
finding. Because Dina does not have hope, she cannot engage in such an optimistic act.
Dr. Raeburn identifies her problem as her tendency to “pretend,” or live in denial,
but fails to help her overcome it. “‘Who knows?’ he asked with a glib, psychiatric smile I’d
never seen before. ‘Maybe it’s your survival mechanism. Black living in a white world’”
(144). It is his duty as her therapist to be nonjudgmental and to be the support that she
never had. Instead he feels superior in diagnosing her as merely broken by her
marginalized identity. Dr. Raeburn’s glib attitude shows that he sees no way or perhaps no
reason to try and help her. An article in the American Psychologist, “Racial Microaggressions
in Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice,” explains how prejudice can perturb
white counselors from helping their clients of color: “Therapists who are unaware of their
biases and prejudices may unintentionally create impasses for clients of color, which may
partially explain well-documented patterns of therapy underutilization and premature
termination of therapy among such clients” (271). Dr. Raeburn undermines Dina’s pain by
attributing it to her skin color and, in doing so, becomes apart of the problem rather than
the solution. Because he refuses to help her navigate her defense mechanism, she hurts
someone she loves. Instead of offering Heidi support and sympathy when her mother dies,
Dina mocks the fact that Heidi has come out and devalues the pain Heidi is feeling. Dina
loses her opportunity to overcome her isolation; she becomes the perpetrator of pain
rather than just a victim.
- 11. Shwake 10
Dina’s failure to overcome her defense mechanism when it is most vital to make a
connection carries a sense of finality. She missed her opportunity to escape her isolation
and express her pain so is condemned from ever achieving inner peace. As the title story,
“Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” demonstrates the downward spiral of self-sabotage that
almost all of the characters go through. The rest of the stories in this compilation follow a
similar structure of possibility turning into rage, capitulation, and disappointment.
3. Searching for New Community
I argue that the Civil Rights Movement created the right circumstances for the
optimistic model of a Bildungsroman. That is not true, however, for Doris Yates. “Doris is
Coming,” the last story in the compilation, introduces a young black woman living in
Louisville, Kentucky during the Civil Rights Movement. Like Dina, Doris bears the same
academic ambition and is equally as isolating. She lives on the cusps of two worlds: the
white children are icy toward her presence and the black students only speak to her about
“Holy Rollers” or “what whites did in class, how they acted and how they treated her.” Her
separation, however, is more concrete because—during 1961—Doris is the only black
student in her high school honors classes. Her presence is itself a political statement and
yet, Doris’ story is not one of triumph but one of loneliness. Her community’s disinterest in
the fight for civil rights leaves her without sympathetic ears that offer support or access to
participate.
All of the adults in her life—her mother, her reverend, and a middle-aged Lithuanian
man she befriends named Stutz—express distrust and even disdain for the Movement.
- 12. Shwake 11
They seem to believe that change will only invite danger and suffering rather than hope.
When Doris informs her reverend of her interest, he responds, “Do you wanna starve, but
keep your house with a hilltop view? Or do you wanna live in the valley with a full belly?
Hmm? And what’s so wrong with the valley, Doris?” (114). The valleys and hilltops he
describes appear in the Bible as such: “Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and
hill made low” (Luke 3:5). From his conservative perspective, the reverend chooses to be
content with what rights they do have and fear what could be lost if they demand more.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (who the reverend criticizes) references the same Bible verse in his
“I Have a Dream” speech: he deciphers that it is only when the world is equal that struggle
will cease and salvation will be realized. Stutz expresses a similar fear of progress. He
suggests that integration would be bad for black-owned shops because their customers
would flock to the white-owned businesses. Although Doris is able to rise and confront the
illogical injustice of racism, the fears of her elders hinder her capability to do so.
Olivia Berman, a young Jewish girl, emerges as Doris’s true mentor. During New
Years’ Eve, Doris is waiting with the rest of her church for the Second Coming because the
Pentecostal Assemblies of the World had calculated that the Rapture would occur on the
last day of that year. In the midst of prayer and shouting, Livia (as she prefers to be called)
appears in the back of the church, distracting Doris: “If Jesus had come at that very second
she would have been left behind because she wasn’t thinking of Him” (106). Though Jesus
did not appear, the person that could help her achieve personal deliverance did. Livia has
just returned home after having been gone. It remains a mystery to Doris where she has
been. Livia’s own “Second Coming” further identifies her as Doris’s “savior,” or her mystical
mentor.
- 13. Shwake 12
Livia encourages Doris to rebel against her restrictive community: she says, “I don’t
think Reverend Sykes lets you do the things you want” (201). Doris recalls that he
discouraged her from participating in sit-ins, demonstrating that she needs to adopt Livia’s
rebellious attitude if she wants to become a Civil Rights Activist. In Ten is the Age of
Darkness: The Black Bildungsroman, Geta LeSeur explains, “They must, however question
whatever values prevail in society and construct a morality and philosophy of life from the
bottom up” (13). As we see by the way her interpretations of Bible verses challenge her
pastor’s understanding, her religion is not equipped to give her the answers she seeks.
With Livia’s influence, Doris slowly abandons the strict but bizarre moral codes of her
church—which she demonstrates when she mocks the failed prediction of the Second
Coming—in order to pursue what she thinks is right. Reestablishing ethics is not by any
means an easy task. She has to replace black and white morals—such as respecting one’s
elders—for abstract evaluations and speculation. She disrespects her reverend, skips
school with Livia, and yells at her good friend, Stutz. Livia is, by no means, a confident
mentor. She compares herself to Satan when she quotes the Bible verse, “I came from
walking to and fro upon the earth. And up and down on it” (109). That Livia identifies with
both Jesus and Satan shows that walking that road of “sin” is necessary to achieve
coherence of self.
Livia encourages Doris to break from her inhibited lifestyle and is the only one that
clearly sees the malignancies of segregation. Livia tells Doris that she is going to a school up
North because she cannot endure the backwardness of the South. When Doris asks if Livia
had attended a mental institution while she was gone, Livia responds, “‘Oh Doris,’ she said.
‘Don’t you know that the real crazy people are the ones who do the same thing over and
- 14. Shwake 13
over again? Expecting a different result every time?’” (119). Doris can see that her
monotonous routine of going from school to home to church is just the insanity that Livia
has described. She knows that she will not receive permission to protest, but Livia’s
comment promulgates her to act anyways. It is only then that she decides to brandish the
dissonance she has long intuited: on her own, she goes to a whites-only diner and demands
that she be served.
Despite Doris’s display of bravery, Packer maintains her sardonic realism. Because
Doris is yet again alone, she is not able to make an impact. Her presence does not at all
create the reaction from the patrons that she anticipated. The tired waitress pities her. She
says that she cannot serve her but offers her the leftovers of her shake. The degradation of
this moment is emphasized by the repulsive imagery: “The shake she handed over had a
lipstick ring around the straw and a little spittle” (123). This is a much more subtle
humiliation to when whites would heckle, attack, and spill food on blacks sitting at whites-
only lunch counters. Though the shake is not a fist, it is all the more painful because it
creates no impact. No photos are taken, no sympathizers are present to witness, and no
justice will be served.
Microaggressions such as these are emotionally traumatic because retribution does
not seem justified or even possible. In her abstract of “Racial Microaggressions in Everyday
Life,” Derald Wing Sue defines: “Racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily
verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that
communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of
color” (271). Speaking out against microaggressors is often punished by outright
aggression or accusation of paranoia, so the victim of a microaggression must suffer alone.
- 15. Shwake 14
When racism is so subtle, it is much more difficult to combat. It is only when the aggression
comes to the surface that race relations can be addressed.
Consider that the largest catalysts in US race dialogues in the past thirty years have
been reactions to when police misconduct resulted in the death of black men. Freddie
Gray,7 Walter Scott, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice are names memorialized
not only because they were killed by policemen, but also because each of their names
sparked the rage that bubbled beneath the surface. No one should have to die for us to pay
attention to the staggering inequalities that fester in every U.S. institution. Black people
living in America have significantly less access to health care, employment, wealth,
education, voting, fair loans8 and even clean water.9 Black people living in America are
significantly more likely to be incarcerated, expelled from school, will die in infancy, and be
killed in a homicide. These have been facts for decades,10 but we only recognize them when
a policeman shoots a 12-year-old boy for having a toy gun.
Like Packer’s other characters, Doris is unaffected by the religious feelings that
influence the rest of her church. This could be interpreted either as a criticism of religion or
as yet another indicator of the separation of these characters from their community. Also
like the other characters, Doris experiences epiphany even if it is not religious. These
epiphanies are striking, but not at all uplifting; instead, they are the recognition of the
impotence of being marginalized. Jean Thompson in the New York Times says, “Doris has to
7 See “The Brutality of Police Culture in Baltimore” in The Atlantic for more information about how Freddie
Gray’s death is one of many instances of police misconduct in Baltimore.
8 See Impact of the US Housing Crisis on the Racial Wealth Gap Across Generations for research that shows that
discriminatory lending contributed to the financial collapse in 2007-2009 and to a persistently growing
wealth gap.
9 Flint, Michigan—of the Flint water crisis—has a predominantly black population.
10 See “America’s Racial Divide, Charted” in the New York Times for data demonstrating inequality in
unemployment, education, representation in the workplace, wages, income, poverty, health insurance, and
life expectancy.
- 16. Shwake 15
find a way to take part in this great moral struggle despite an upbringing that equates
morality with passivity.” Though she tries to be active, Doris fails to overcome the passivity
that her elders have taught her. The final sentence of Doris’ story is tragic in its compliance:
“The sky had just turned her favorite shade of barely lit blue, the kind that came to
windows when you couldn’t get back to sleep but couldn’t quite pry yourself awake” (265).
After the disappointment at the “White Only” diner, Doris seems to have lost all of the fight
she had in her. The feeling of being isolated in the wedge between two worlds is
communicated in this metaphor. During that time in between wake and asleep, everyone is
completely alone. It also communicates her anxiety about her inability to move forward.
That Dina feels the same way that Doris does in 1961, points to a need for unity toward
revolution. These characters know that there is something wrong, but their pain goes
untended, and their political will repudiated.
4. Feminine Impotence
While Packer demonstrates the forces that push Doris and Dina into apathy and
acquiescence, her story, “Every Tongue Shall Confess” maps out a trajectory for where their
lives lead. Clareese Mitchell has already succumbed to the patriarchal pressures of her
church. The Brothers’ Church11 Council of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of
the Fire Baptized preys on her craving for “guidance and companionship” when her aunt is
dying. In this respect, her Bildungsroman has already failed. Her journey into the Church
proves to not only be unsatisfactory, but detrimental. She becomes even more isolated than
11 It is interesting to note that the church belongs to brothers, which negates the influence of the “Sisters”
such as Clareese.
- 17. Shwake 16
she originally felt, and she is brought to the cataclysmic realization that she is—as a
woman—completely impotent against the powers of men.
The nonlinear narrative is a compilation of Clareese’s memories of resentment.
While in the choir benches waiting to perform her solo, she tries to “Persevere” over her
anger at the church for making her wear white while she has her “womanly troubles.”
Instead of doing so, she considers all of the affronts made on her womanhood. This is
similar to the structure of Dina’s story in which her grief tumbles out in dreams and in
therapy. Because Clareese rumination on her flashbacks, however, her reaction is not
implosive but externally aggressive. According to the article, “The Displaced Aggression
Questionnaire” published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a person
displaces aggression when they feel incapable or hesitant to react against someone that has
angered them. Typically, they are silenced because the provocateur has power over them.
Those that are most likely to displace aggression often spend an inordinate amount of time
ruminating (1033). While most people forget about an aversive event after about ten
minutes, people that ruminate will hold onto that anger for much longer. Clareese’s story is
so dominated by rumination, that the entire structure changes to accommodate it. Instead
of being told chronologically, the sequence jumps in a seemingly random fashion from one
offense to another. She self-destructs because she is unable to organize these instances into
a recognizable and solvable problem.
The nurses Clareese works with do the same. They resolve their feelings of
impotence by aggressing against each other. Even their aggression is indirect. They mock
and deride Clareese, shouting at her back that she needs to “get laid,” debasing her
womanhood and her independence. Though Clareese’s peers are hard working, self-
- 18. Shwake 17
sufficient, medical professionals, they can only value themselves in contrast to a man. They
amuse themselves by making bets about who will be married first. Clareese resents that
Nurse Holloway wears pumps to work “as if she was too good for the standard
orthopedically correct shoes” because it implies that the approval of men is more
important to her than being effective at her job. Because they cannot resist the patriarchy
that suppresses them, these women tear each other down to reclaim the power they lose.
The first memory Clareese considers is perhaps the most troubling but met with the
least gravity: Deacon McCreedy, a man from her church, sexually assaults her. After he
demands that she leave work because he is “concerned for her soul,” he eats the lunch
Clareese has made for him, covers her eyes and tells her to sing. She obeys and, before she
can stop him, McCreedy puts his hand down her pants. He pulls back in “disgust—no,
hatred” when he realizes she has her period. In this episode, Packer not only criticizes the
Church’s history of sexual abuse, but she also reflects on the dogmatic hostility toward
women: McCreedy is disgusted at the very thing that makes Clareese a woman. To him, her
body is only viable as a recipient of male penetration.
McCreedy is not the only one in the church to hold this view: Clareese says Pastor
Everett “thought of her as something worse than a spinster, because she wasn’t yet old”
(41). The word “spinster” referred to unmarried women in the Middle Ages who have past
the viable age to have children so are removed from the public sphere. This word prevails
(though in pejorative terms) as a woman who is undesirable and alone. Clareese’s
interpretation of the pastor’s perception shows that because Clareese has not made her
body available to a man, it is not serving its purpose.
- 19. Shwake 18
Unmarried men, on the other hand, are bachelors. Though the etymology of the
word carries implications of youth or inexperience, bachelor does not imply shame or a
deadline. A woman only functions as the complement to a man maintains his vitality with
or without a woman. Simone de Beauvoir writes, “In actuality the relation of the two sexes
is not quite like that of two electrical poles, for man represents both the positive and the
neutral to such an extent that in French hommes designates human beings, the particular
meaning of the word vir being assimilated into the general meaning of the word homme.
Woman is the negative, to such a point that any determination is imputed to her as a
limitation, without reciprocity.” Both homo and vir are root words that reference the male
and both are integral parts of words that signify humanity and positivity (e.g., virtue,
virginity, virility, homo sapien). Furthermore, man represents all of humanity while woman
represents merely a subset of man.
A man is intended to be a presence, a force; a woman is a lack of something, a
deficiency of vitality. She is designed to receive. As Beauvoir’s words indicate, women are
not intended to place resistance against men so it is unsurprising when Clareese fails to
react to being sexually assaulted by Deacon McCreedy. “But she could forgive him—if
Sisters could even forgive Deacons—for she could have understood that an unmarried man
might have needs, but what really bothered her was how he ignored her” (34). While
Clareese’s single status brands her as barren, McCreedy is able to maintain his virility as an
“unmarried” sexual being.12 He has a right to his sexuality that she does not. She is
12 I do not mean this literally; Clareese still has her period, so she is still able to have children, but her lack of
attachment eliminates her status as a sexual being because she is not passively receiving the sexual
advancements of a man.
- 20. Shwake 19
bothered not by his action, but by the absence of it. When he ignores her, she has nothing to
receive and nothing to react to; her place has been destabilized.
Because Sisters cannot “forgive Deacons,” Clareese must redirect her anger
elsewhere. She expels her pent-up rage by aggressing against a man that is even more
impotent than her. While trying to convert her patient, Cleophus Sanders—who maintains
his cheery and flirtatious disposition despite his amputation—she reacts
“disproportionally” when he expresses misgivings. When he asks Clareese why there is so
much suffering in the world—an understandable question from a man who has just lost his
leg—the impotence she has been feeling is amplified. “But most, like Mr. Toomey, cast the
Lord aside like wilted lettuce, and now the clean hospital room was just a reminder of the
emptiness, the barrenness of her patients’ souls” (50). The exaggerated imagery of this
sentence denotes an urgent desperation that exceeds an appropriate reaction. Enraged, she
yells at Cleophus, telling him that no one has the right to live, only to die. Every time a
person that ruminates thinks about the thing that caused them to originally be angry, they
are priming or activating their aggressive behavior (Denson, 1033). He chases after her
when she leaves in a frenzy, but he falls trying to manage his crutches. “She heard the
clatter of him gathering his crutches, and even when she heard the meaty weight of him
slam onto the floor she did not turn back” (51). Cleophus has just lamented God’s
indifference; in an ironic twist, the gruesome bitterness of this description seems to
confirm it. After considering all of the disrespect she has suffered, Clareese acts out against
the only genuine person in her life. In fact, Cleophus is the antithesis of those that have
degraded her womanhood. He offers her companionship and admires her whole person.
- 21. Shwake 20
Because she cannot express her anger to her real provocateurs, she puts her job in
jeopardy and hurts the only man that cares for her.
Typically, the Bildungsroman form calls for an epiphany that changes the
protagonist. Clareese’s traumatic revelation mirrors that of John’s in Go Tell It on the
Mountain. Instead of realizing his faith, John is able to reconcile with his homosexuality and
Gabriel’s oppression because of the hallucinations he experiences while on the “threshing
floor” of Temple of the Fire Baptized. Clareese is overcome with extreme pain while sitting
in the choir stalls of the church. “And at exactly that moment, it hit her, right below the gut,
a sharp pain, and she imagined her uterus, that Texas-shaped organ, the Rio Grande of her
monthly womanly troubles flushing out to the Gulf” (35). The word, “flushing,” insinuates
purification, much like a baptism. The Rio Grande is the fifth largest river in the world and
flows through mostly arid regions, making it a symbol of fertility. It also acts as a natural
border between America and Mexico, which comments on the rift between genders in this
book. Packer’s comparison of the size of her uterus to Texas insists on the power of her
womanhood. This is reminiscent of Nikky Finney’s poem, “The Clitoris” who compares this
bodily organ to the size of Africa, both of which are frequently underestimated. Because
Finney and Packer compare their sexual organs to powerful, massive lands, they reclaim
the power of their bodies. This enhances the rage Clareese feels at being oppressed: she
knows that she is strong, but her community grounds her into passivity.
It is doubtful, however, that Clareese’s epiphany is as liberating as John’s. Though
Clareese could embrace her power as a woman and walk away from the subjugation of the
church, it seems that her anger will work against her.
Now she knew why he’d come. He’d come for her. He’d come despite what she’d told
him, despite his belief. Anyhow, she disapproved. It was God he needed, not her.
- 22. Shwake 21
Nevertheless, she remained standing for a few moments, even after the rest of the
choir had already seated themselves, waving their cardboard fans to cool their
sweaty faces (53).
Clareese is the antithesis to the men of Clareese’s church who patronize her, so has put
pressure on the doubt that irks at her dogmatic mind. Her resentment should be a catalyst,
but her beliefs and her personal growth remain static. Geoff Hamilton and Brian Jones
argue in their Encyclopedia of Contemporary Writers and Their Works that it is the
“polarized identities” of Packer’s characters that hold them back. They write, “In some
instances, Packer’s characters make a clear choice to return to the world they feel most
comfortable inhabiting; either a choice of cowardice or an attempt to integrate new
knowledge into old understandings” (103). It seems that Clareese’s choice is an influence of
the former. Clareese’s experience of her sexual assault and misogynistic oppression is not
enough to push her away from the dogma of blind, unwavering loyalty to her church. She
rejects Cleophus’s offer of real love and community for a false sense of righteousness and
religious fervor.
5. Fixing the Bildungsroman
While the other characters fail to change their situations, 14-year-old Tia Townsend
does not. “Speaking in Tongues” is the one story out of the eight in the collection that ends
both successfully and adheres to the conventions of the Bildungsroman. Tia is just as
isolated and arguably faces even more dangerous challenges than her counterparts, but she
is able to overcome both because she makes active choices to change her situation. More
importantly, she is the only character that has the mentors to encourage her to do so.
- 23. Shwake 22
Tia lives in rural Montgomery, Alabama with her great-aunt Roberta, who acts as
her legal guardian. She and her friend, Marcelle, are the only “saved” evangelical students
to attend their high school. This would be isolating enough if their inability to
wholeheartedly embrace their religion did not also separate them from the rest of their
Sunday school class. While the other students have begun to speak in tongues, Marcelle and
Tia have not. Speaking in tongues is the practice of uttering what is believed to be a divine
language when enraptured by prayer in church. Tia explains, “You could only truly speak in
tongues when all worldly matters were emptied from your mind, or else there was no room
for God” (151). Those that are able to speak in tongues have succeeded in blinding
themselves to the concerns of their immediate present; Tia’s exceptional awareness of
these “worldly matters” repels such blinders. Despite Tia’s best efforts to speak in tongues
and fully embrace her religion, she cannot foster an unyielding belief in God.
When Tia laughs at the “ridiculousness” of the way her Sunday school books are
written, Sister Gwendolyn—her teacher—takes her into a closet and asks her to receive the
Holy Ghost. Tia is unresponsive, so Sister Gwendolyn goes to aunt Roberta. “She knew what
they were thinking: Tia did not Believe, thus Tia Laughed in her Heart, thus Tia was not
able to Speak in Tongues. Their thoughts headed toward the same conclusion as tiny ants
march toward the same mammoth crumb of bread” (152). Tia’s perception of their thought
process shows that she thinks they blindly conform to the morality of the Bible. The
oxymoron of the phrase “a mammoth crumb of bread” suggests that Tia doubts the massive
power of their God. She characterizes their thought process with Biblical rhetoric, showing
that they do not have a mind of their own. However, that same mindless, drone-like
devotion to their religion also binds them in a way that is unbreakable. Tia describes their
- 24. Shwake 23
thoughts as “tiny ants,” a colony in which the individual always perishes. Whether or not
Tia doubts her religion, it is obvious that she resents her inability to join the community.13
Instead of accepting her isolation, she looks for the feeling of belonging elsewhere.
The last time Tia had seen her mother was when she was seven, but she still longs for the
hazy memories she has of her. “How her mother would absently stroke her hair, wherever
she happened to be, like a starlet. How she would hold Tia’s face with both hands, as if it
were a big blossom” (155). Tia knows what it feels to be cherished, to feel loved; these
memories function as solace from her isolation. They are not marred by the fact that her
mother was addicted to drugs at the time, so Tia goes looking for her. She decides to use
the thirty-four dollars she has to take a bus to Atlanta, Georgia. Despite recognizing the
danger of it, 17-year-old Marcelle succeeds as Tia’s first mentor because she supports her
journey. If Marcelle had tried to discourage her, Tia would have missed her opportunity to
leave the community and reach the integral part of her education as an exceptional
individual.
The stated goal of Tia’s Atlanta trip is to find her mother, but the greater reason for
her pursuit is the need for a sense of belonging. On the bus ride, she projects this yearning
onto the bus driver: “Tia could only see the back of his head but he seemed to be thinking, I
will leave you all behind, and then where will you be? I will enter this here growth of weed and
disappear forever” (158). The tone here is different from the Biblical rhetoric of Roberta
and Gwendolyn’s speech, but is still marked by an unusual formality. The image of slipping
into the brush has an elusive, mystical quality to it. The image of her mysterious escape
13 When she leaves her community, she does not think or mention God once. Her sudden and deliberate
dissociation from religion shows that she is not at all moved to return to her religious education.
- 25. Shwake 24
mirrors her own travels. Attributing these words to the bus driver’s thoughts shows how
desperately she craves the connection of knowing that she is not alone in her experience.
She urges him to “Go,” but instead—as is typical of Packer’s sardonic humor—she sees that
he is only relieving himself. An episode such as this would have been disheartening enough
to the other characters that they would give up. Tia’s unwavering optimism pushes her
forward, propelling her toward the connection she is looking for.
Tia first demonstrates her exceptional awareness when she considers the unspoken
barriers that linger between races in the late nineties. Waiting at the Montgomery bus stop,
she considers: “Perhaps this was exactly how it looked when King lived here, and she tried
to imagine where the ‘Colored’ and Whites Only’ signs would have hung, then she realized
she didn’t have to. All five blacks waited in one area, all three whites in another” (156).
Here, Tia refers to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s involvement in the Montgomery bus boycott
that began at that very station. She recognizes that racism persists, but in much more
subtle ways than thirty years prior. The parallel between the boycotters and Tia boarding
her own bus indicates a mobilization of her racial education.
When she arrives in Atlanta, she sees just how little has changed since MLK led the
boycott on that bus station in Montgomery. The black people she comes into contact with
have no other way to survive than to sell drugs and their bodies. LeSeur explains, “Black
children do not remain childlike for long in the United States, but are initiated into the
larger problems and cruder side of life very early” (4). Tia’s arrival in Atlanta—a city that
maintains a predominantly black population—14 exposes her to a reality of race inequality
14 According to the New York Times article “The Census Shows Growth in Atlanta’s Population” published in
2001, the census showed that Blacks were two-thirds of the city’s population in 1990. Though that number
- 26. Shwake 25
in modern-day America that is much more malignant than ingroup favoritism.15 She sees
that the truly malignant aspect of race inequality in America is economic.
Upon her arrival in Atlanta, she is neither able to find her mother nor pay for a place
to sleep with her limited funds. She meets Dezi, a drug dealer, who offers to let her stay in
his home. Though she originally recognizes the danger of accepting help from a thirty-year-
old man who feels a “connection” toward her, she is eventually won over: “A surge of
affection rose in her for Dezi, for his protectiveness, for the pain in his eyes” (176-177). She
considers him to be a misunderstood person, like herself, and accepts his apparent
hospitality. This, again, shows her desire to connect.
Marie, a sex worker who claims to be partners with Dezi (readers are left to imagine
the nature of their business), is neither silent nor compliant. At first, Marie comes off as an
abrasive and jealous ex-girlfriend. When Tia asks enough questions for Marie to reveal her
true self, readers must acknowledge the humanness of a woman who would otherwise be
met with indifferent disgust. She says that she is only working until she has enough money
to purchase a condo for her and her children. Marie becomes a victim of circumstance and a
mother rather than a prostitute.
Marie also becomes Tia’s confidant and advisor as she moves forward with her
relationship with Dezi. Despite Marie’s warnings, Tia submits to Dezi’s sexual advances.
Though Bildungsroman novels typically feature two affairs—one that is “exalting” and one
that is “debasing”—Tia’s relationship with Dezi functions as both. Because she is fourteen
slipped to 61 percent in 2000, this is still a staggering majority in a country where blacks made up only had
12.3 percent of the population at the time. Therefore, Atlanta is an ideal model for race inequality.
15 Ingroup favoritism is “the tendency to favor members of one’s own group over those in other groups” and
shows how race segregation starts with the innocuous preference to spend time with people that are similar.
See “Preferences and beliefs in ingroup favoritism” by Everett, Faber, and Crockett for more information.
- 27. Shwake 26
and Dezi is over thirty, she is not old enough to give consent. “Dezi had taken something
away from her when he kissed her, but she could not name it” (182). Though she does not
necessarily reject him, this moment shows that Tia is not actively making the decision to
engage with him. Several times, he pressures her into moving past what she is comfortable
with.
Despite this disturbing reality, Tia still learns from the experience. “Dezi’s erection
was as insistent as his tongue, and as they swam over one another on the couch, she knew
that this was her chance, like birth, to be part of someone. Then it hit her with a sadness: if
sex and birth meant being part of someone, then death meant you belonged to nobody at
all” (193). This is an existential moment for a fourteen-year-old to have. Though not as
academically ambitious as the other protagonists, Tia clearly still has the same unique
intuition. She has finally found that feeling that she has been missing: being apart of
someone. In finding this, however, she also realizes that being with a person is not the
solace she is searching for. She rejects him because she realizes—in death—we are all
alone. So, feeling whole is not about being with another person; it is about finding one’s
space as an individual. This is, in essence, the goal of the Bildungsroman. Tia can return
home now that she has experienced her epiphany and matured into independence.
To return, however, Tia needs a catalyst, which comes in the form of yet another
debasing sexual experience. Tia falls asleep after yet again rejecting Dezi’s advances; when
she wakes up and finds evidence of arousal, she mistakenly believes Dezi has raped her.
After almost stabbing Dezi in her frantic escape, Tia goes to Marie with her confusion.
Though Marie confirms that Tia had not been raped and explains what happened, she still
plans a way to get Tia home and away from Dezi. Marie demands that all of the other sex
- 28. Shwake 27
workers give her money so that she can buy Tia a ticket home. In that moment, Marie
reacts by claiming her power and agency and also by acting like a mother. The spirit of
womanhood unites the sex workers around Tia. When Dezi tries to get Tia back and goes to
grab her, “The street girls pinned Dezi to the ground with their high heels and platforms,
screaming all at once to Tia, ‘Run! Run! Run!’” (209). They unite against their oppressor
instead of separately tearing each other down (as the nurses do in “Every Tongue Shall
Confess”). Tia has created a community of her own: that of women.
“Speaking in Tongues” is one of the darker stories of the set, but it is the only one
with a climax and a conciliatory ending. While the others cut to black after some odd
sentiment of depression lingering, Tia’s story is triumphant. Her story is perhaps the most
traumatic and the most viscerally impactful of all, but the last line is the most indicative of
Tia’s successful rise: “Tia stood up and brushed gravel and broken glass from her skirt. And
she ran.” While every other story ends with a sense of hopeless finality, this sentence is
active and promises a future of empowerment. Tia’s story is open-ended and propitious.
In his book Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes to his son, “You have
been cast into a race in which the wind is always at your face and the hounds are always at
your heels. And to varying degrees this is true of all life. The difference is that you do not
have the privilege of living in ignorance to this essential fact.” He dreads the fact that his
son will be so unbearably self-aware and have to see himself in contrast with others. He
mourns that because his son was born black in America, he is exposed to the ugliness of the
world. However, he knows that it is also a gift because his son will be cognizant of the truth
of the world. It is truth—not privilege or power—that defines the value of a life. Tia accepts
this same charge. She becomes painfully aware of the gruesomeness of her world but,
- 29. Shwake 28
unlike the other protagonists, she is able to survive that reality. Marie is the missing link in
the other stories. She and the other sex workers band together to save the young girl from
the perpetrator of their pain. Marie activates this group of downtrodden individuals and in
saving Tia, they empower themselves. When Marie sends her off, she tells Tia to never let
anyone lock her in a closet again. Though she is referring specifically to when Sister
Gwendolyn took her into the hymnbook closet, it speaks more generally. It demands that
oppressed people claim their sense of Self and rebel against their oppressor. The rest of the
characters either fail to ask for support, or their educators fail to supply it. Packer’s
reconciliation with the conventional Bildungsroman in this story demonstrates that
mentorship is vital to the formula for success of the exceptional individual.
6. Conclusion
Packer’s resistance against the optimism of the Bildungsroman genre is exactly what
makes her a significant addition to it. She acknowledges that the individual does have
power: her characters exude that terrible beauty of the burden of consciousness. At the
same time, Packer warns of the harrowing effects of being so soon and so violently exposed
to the pain of the world. The dissonance these black women experience within their white
patriarchal societies can enlighten, but it can also destroy. The individual cannot hope to
reach self-discovery and positive growth if they try and do it alone: they will end up as
hopeless as Dina, as helpless as Doris, or as angry as Clareese. It is not that Packer is
rejecting the standard Bildungsroman template; she is supplying a caveat. If children like
Tia have educators like Marie to ease this burden, they can escape the endless cycle of
- 31. Shwake 30
Bibliography
Anguelov, Zlatko, and Denise Behrens. "ZZ Packer." The Writing University, April 22, 2011.
"bachelor, n.". OED Online. March 2016. Oxford University Press.
Baldwin, James. 1995. Go Tell It on the Mountain. 1995 Modern Library ed. New York:
Modern Library.
Beatty, Paul. 1996. The White Boy Shuffle. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Beauvoir, Simone de. 1953. The Second Sex.[1st American ed.]. New York: K.
Birnbaum, Robert. "Author Interview: ZZ Packer." Identity Theory, April 29, 2003.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. 1974. Maud Martha. New York: AMS Press.
Buckley, Jerome Hamilton. 1974. Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to
Golding. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Burd-Sharps, Sarah, and Rebecca Rasch. "Impact of the US housing crisis on the racial
wealth gap across generations." Social Science Research Council: June 2015.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. 2015. Between the World and Me. New York: Spiegel & Grau.
Denson, Thomas F., William C. Pedersen, and Norman Miller. "The Displaced Aggression
Questionnaire." Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology 90.6 (2006): 1032-
1051. PsycARTICLES. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
Desmond-Harris, Jenée. "Acting White": The Most Insidious Myth about Black Kids and
Achievement." Vox. March 04, 2015. Accessed April 12, 2016.
Everett JA, Faber NS, and Crockett M. 2015. "Preferences and Beliefs in Ingroup
Favoritism." Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 9: 15.
Firestone, David. "The Census Shows Growth In Atlanta's Population." The New York Times,
March 23, 2001.
- 32. Shwake 31
Hamilton, Geoff, and Brian Jones. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Writers and Their Works.
New York, NY: Facts On File, Inc., 2010. Print.
Howe, Katy A., "Isolation and Community in Short Story Collections by Z.Z. Packer, Jhumpa
Lahiri, and Mary Gaitskill" (2006). Master's Theses, Dissertations and Graduate
Research Overview. Paper 5.
Irwin, Neil, Claire Cain Miller, and Margot Sanger-Katz. "America’s Racial Divide, Charted."
The New York Times. August 19, 2014. Accessed April 12, 2016.
LeSeur, Geta J. 1995. Ten Is the Age of Darkness: The Black Bildungsroman. Columbia:
University of Missouri Press.
Packer, Z. Z. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. New York: Riverhead Books, 2003.
"spinster, n.". OED Online. March 2016. Oxford University Press.
Sue, Derald Wing, Christina M. Capodilupo, Gina C. Torino, Jennifer M. Bucceri, Aisha M. B.
Holder, Kevin L. Nadal, and Marta Esquilin. 2007. "Racial Microaggressions in
Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice." American Psychologist 62 (4): 271-
286.
The Holy Bible, King James Version. New York: American Bible Society: 1999; Bartleby.com,
2000.
Thompson, Jean. Review of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. New York Times Book Review (March
16, 2003): 7.
