Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

I haven’t read her, but A.M. Homes is pretty sharp

[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060520132/qid=1101289055/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/102-4354633-0013701?v=glance&s=books[/url]

Let us know about the coffee book…
j(ay)

I never read any comtemporary fiction by female writers, it's not a conscious decision for me either, the last book I read by a woman who is still alive(at least I think she's still alive) was Chemical Pink. That was pretty cool but everyone's read it so probably not a pleasant surprise, recommendations-wise.

[QUOTE=jay]
I haven’t read her, but A.M. Homes is pretty sharp
j(ay)[/QUOTE]

And damn alluring, too.

I've ejaculated onto her book jacket photos more times than not.

[QUOTE=the audacity!]And damn alluring, too.I've ejaculated onto her book jacket photos more times than not.[/QUOTE]

Heh. Funny you should say that...she's actually farrrrrrr from looking that good. [Not that looks are everything] But in those 2 publicity shots she has must have been having the best (physical) day(s) of her life.

Again, not that this matters…but for your visual pleasure I present to you, as example: Before Pie and After Pie
j(ay)
[IMG]http://www.geocities.com/jtraci/Homes.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.geocities.com/jtraci/homes2.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=jay]Before Pie and After Pie[/QUOTE]Ha ha ! hahaha

Oh ...I'm weak...

My Lord, how far we have fallen!

I need a new literary bitch.

Books written by female authors that I've read and enjoyed, or that I own and plan to read:

Kathy Acker - Blood And Guts In High School - ("Jamey lived in the locked room. Twice a day the Persian slave trader came in and taught her to be a whore. Otherwise there was nothing. Once day she found a pencil stub and scrap of paper in a forgotten corner of the room. She began to write down he life, starting with "Parents stink" (Her father, who is also her boyfriend, has fallen in love with another woman and is about to leave her). With Blood and Guts in High School, Kathy Acker, whose work has been labeled everthing from post-punk porn to post-punk feminism, has created a brilliantly subversive narrative built from conversation, description, conjecture, and moments snatched from history and literature.")

Poppy Z. Brite - Exquisite Corpse - ("To serial slayer Andrew Compton, murder is an art, the most intimate art. After feigning his own death to escape from prison, Compton makes his way to the United States with the sole ambition of bringing his "art" to new heights. Tortured by his own perverse desires, and drawn to possess and destroy young boys, Compton inadvertently joins forces with Jay Byrne, a dissolute playboy who has pushed his "art" to limits even Compton hadn't previously imagined. Together, Compton and Byrne set their sights on an exquisite young Vietnamese-American runaway. Tran, whom they deem to be the perfect victim. Swiftly moving from the grimy streets of London's Piccadilly Circus to the decadence of the New Orleans French Quarter, and punctuated by rants from radio talk show host Lush Rimbaud, a.k.a. Luke Ransom, Tran's ex-lover, who is dying of AIDS and who intends to wreak ultimate havoc before leaving this world, Exquisite Corpse unfolds into a labyrinth of murder and love. Ultimately all four characters converge on a singular bloody night after which their lives will be irrevocably changed - or terminated.")

Joan Didion - The White Album - ("First published in 1979, The White Album is a mosaic of the late sixties and seventies. It includes, among other bizarre artifacts and personalities, the dark journeys and impulses of the Manson family, a Balck Panther Party press conference, the story of John Paul Getty's museum, the romance of water in an arid landscape, and the swirl and confusion of the sixties. With commanding sureness of mood and language, Joan Didion exposes the realities and dreams of that age of self-discovery whose spiritual center was California.")

Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - ("Centuries ago, when magic still existed in England, the greatest magician of them all was the Raven King. A human child brought up by fairies, the Raven King blended fairy wisdom and human reason to create English magic. Now, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he is barely more than a legend, and England, with its mad King and its dashing poets, no longer believes in practical magic. Then the reclusive Mr Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey appears and causes the statues of York Cathedral to speak and move. News spreads of the return of magic to England and, persuaded that he must help the government in the war against Napoleon, Mr Norrell goes to London. There he meets a brilliant young magician and takes him as a pupil. Jonathan Strange is charming, rich and arrogant. Together, they dazzle the country with their feats. But the partnership soon turns to rivalry. Mr Norrell has never conquered his lifelong habits of secrecy, while Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous magic. He becomes fascinated by the shadowy figure of the Raven King, and his heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens, not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.")

Patricia Highsmith - Ripley Under Ground - ("In this harrowing illumination of the psychotic mind, the enviable Tom Ripley has a lovely house in the French countryside, a beautiful and very rich wife, and an art collection worthy of a connoisseur. But such a gracious life has not come easily. One inopportune inquiry, one inconvenient friend, and Ripley's world will come tumbling down -- unless he takes decisive steps. In a mesmerizing novel that coolly subverts all traditional notions of literary justice, Ripley enthralls us even as we watch him perform acts of pure and unspeakable evil.")

Tama Janowitz - Slaves Of New York - ("Meet the denizens of New York City: artists, prostitutes, saints, and seers. All are aspiring toward either fame or oblivion, and hoping for love and acceptance. Instead they find high rents, faithless partners, and dead-end careers. But between the disappointments come snatches of self-awareness, and astrange beauty in their encounters with one another.")

Kathe Koja - Skin - ("As a sculptor of metal, Tess is consumed with the perfection of welds, the drip of liquid metal, addicted to the burn. Her solitary existence ends when she meets Bibi. A self-proclaimed "guerilla performance artist," Bibi pushes her body to the utmost in her dancing, sculpting it into a finely tuned machine. But the limits of her body frustrate her. With Tess, she creates a performance art of mobile, bladelike sculptures and human dance that becomes increasingly violent and dangerous. Still this is not enough for Bibi. Her desire to grow and transform leads her to body piercing, then to ritual cuttings and scarrings. And further. Though Tess breaks their partnership, she cannot stop Bibi's dark exploration of the limits of her body. Her search is self-destructive, all-encompassing... unstoppable.")

Lydia Lunch - Paradoxia - ("Paradoxia is the graphic and confrontational autobiographical work of highly-acclaimed, cult icon Lydia Lunch. These frank and often shocking confessions lure the reader into the uncensored world of Lydia Lunch and her single-handed assault on the male of the species. With an introduction by Hubert Selby Jr." Excerpt from Chapter 1: "I'd stalk bars, clubs, bookstores, public parks and the Emergency Room. Seeking in lost men a place to lose myself. Searching for a pocket of weakness. Looking for the 'sweet spot', a small tear in the psychic fabric to feast upon. To hide inside. A place to disappear in, manifesting myself in a multiplicity of personalities which all shared the same goal. To trick the next john into relinquishing his moral, financial, spiritual or physical guard, so that no matter what the outcome, I won. I got what I wanted. Whether it was money, conversation, drama - or sex.")

Joyce Carol Oates - Zombie - ("A hero who gets into the mind of a serial killer is a fixture of television crime shows, but such stories are usually disappointing, because the viewer knows it's just a gimmick. Not so with this unusual little novel, which The New York Times called a "note-perfect, horror-comic ventriloquization of a half-bright, infantile serial killer." Joyce Carol Oates has so convincingly written through the voice of a killer, you will feel nervous while reading at how familiar, how human, he is. Part of how she achieves the effect is through sparing use of bizarre capitalization (e.g., "MOON" and "FRAGMENT") and crude drawings done with a felt-tip pen. But the language is what makes it come alive, as in such weird statements as "My whole body is a numb tongue." This book was winner of the 1996 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.")

[QUOTE=rsarao]
Poppy Z. Brite - Exquisite Corpse - ("To serial slayer Andrew Compton, murder is an art, the most intimate art. After feigning his own death to escape from prison, Compton makes his way to the United States with the sole ambition of bringing his "art" to new heights. Tortured by his own perverse desires, and drawn to possess and destroy young boys, Compton inadvertently joins forces with Jay Byrne, a dissolute playboy who has pushed his "art" to limits even Compton hadn't previously imagined. Together, Compton and Byrne set their sights on an exquisite young Vietnamese-American runaway. Tran, whom they deem to be the perfect victim. Swiftly moving from the grimy streets of London's Piccadilly Circus to the decadence of the New Orleans French Quarter, and punctuated by rants from radio talk show host Lush Rimbaud, a.k.a. Luke Ransom, Tran's ex-lover, who is dying of AIDS and who intends to wreak ultimate havoc before leaving this world, Exquisite Corpse unfolds into a labyrinth of murder and love. Ultimately all four characters converge on a singular bloody night after which their lives will be irrevocably changed - or terminated.")[/QUOTE]
Exquisite Corpse is really quite excellent. After I'd finished it I wasn't sure whether to make sure all my friends read it or set fire to it. Poppy is a much better writer when she's not on dodgy vampires and shit.

The book arrived yesterday. I picked it up to check out the style of the first page or two, probably not two pages... I really had to sleep. Just the first page. Realised it was late and I should stop reading when I hit the end of the second story. Fifty pages in.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer. These stories won't be to everyone's taste - not in that they're extreme or disgusting (which would probably to many people's taste here), but that they're subtle, big issues illuminated through small events in small lives, they don't have neat resolutions..... What are the stories about? Well, the first one, BROWNIES, is about a bunch of girls who decide to kick another bunch of girls' asses...

They are so beautifully written. Superb characterisation. Incredibly evocative. You don't even have to tell yourself 'one more page' because you don't notice yourself turning pages... This is the best first-fifty-pages I've read in a long time - and I read a lot.

Susanna Moore's In the Cut is a fantastic short novel.

[QUOTE=jay]Heh. Funny you should say that...she's actually farrrrrrr from looking that good. [Not that looks are everything] But in those 2 publicity shots she has must have been having the best (physical) day(s) of her life.

Again, not that this matters…but for your visual pleasure I present to you, as example: Before Pie and After Pie
j(ay)
[IMG]http://www.geocities.com/jtraci/Homes.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.geocities.com/jtraci/homes2.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]

BUBBLE POPPER!

your a BUBBLE POPPER!

On subject: Gobo, you're discription of the subtlety of the book really makes me want to pick it up. I think i'll be keeping my eyes open for it the next time I'm at the book store. Also, cheers for the nostalgia. Fraggle Rock kicked so much ass, despite the fact that the idea of having creatures live in the cracks of my house was also supremely frightening to me when I was little.

Off subject: Maybe Homes was having a bad picture day? I dunno, I googled just to be sure and there are more hot pics than oogly ones. Not that it really matters, I mean, it's not like anybody here is going to be faced with the option of boning her anytime soon.

On a side note, "boning" is not a word commonly used in my vocabulary, just to let you know.

[QUOTE=Rents]On subject: Gobo, you're discription of the subtlety of the book really makes me want to pick it up. I think i'll be keeping my eyes open for it the next time I'm at the book store. Also, cheers for the nostalgia. Fraggle Rock kicked so much ass, despite the fact that the idea of having creatures live in the cracks of my house was also supremely frightening to me when I was little.
.[/QUOTE]

I noticed Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is now a 'bargain book' on amazon.com at $6.99 for the Hardcover
[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002EAU6I/ref=bfl_upf//104-1971095-9127953?v=glance[/url]

I paid more than this for the paperback. Snarl.

Emily Carter's [I]Glory Goes and Gets Some[/I]

There's a great section in this book about a woman so desperate for a man she conjurs one out of a documentary about sailors buried in permafrost, then exhumed years later to find they look exactly like they did when they were buried (which is to say, dead.) He thaws over the course of that chapter.

There's a lot more going on in the book, not all of it this strange.

Rikki Ducornet's [I]The Fan Maker[/I]

When the Marquis de Sade is a character in the book, you know it's going to be...well, if not good, at least entertaining. This book was good, though. Ducornet did some interesting things with structure and voice.

Hannah Tinti's [I]Animal Crackers[/I]

A short story collection connected by animal themes (in a less contrived way than it sounds). This is her first book, and though it wobbles around the edges I really enjoyed it. One of the stories is about a woman who paints murals in museums and thinks a stuffed bear is out to get her. Tinti is also one of the two editors of one-story.com. This book is still available in hardback; the others in trade paperback.

I have the ZZ Packer but haven't got to it yet--I'm saving it for the next time I'm writing short stories. Glad to hear your thoughts on it.

[QUOTE]"I had heard/read nothing but good things about this book and so, inevitably, expected to be let down. It would be too hard for it to match up to the glowing praise it had received.
But, no, it is superb. Brilliant. I read the first fifty pages after opening it to read the acknowledgements... didn't even notice I was turning pages. It sucked me in from the start. It is incredibly easy to read - not due to simplicity but due to the writer's unforced facility with language.
I hope ZZ writes more. Much more."[/QUOTE]

Gobo - you wrote this, didn't you. Go on, admit it.

Just within the past month I've harnessed my previously painful incapability of quitting on a book until the very end, so with 21 1/2 years of repression giving way, maybe I am, unjustifiably, all too eager now to exercise my right to discard what I find rotten.
With that said, I gave up on Drinking Coffee Elsewhere halfway through the 7th of 8 stories. For the premise alone, "Brownies" strung me along for 29 pages without remorse, culminating as it did with the 4th grade narrators poignant recollection of familial racism and its implications. That was, I suppose, enough to warrant a favorable recommendation, but as a body of work, the stories that followed were so inexplicably lacking of any wonder or revelation that I can't say in good conscience that ZZ Packer is worth your time.
"Every Tongue Shall Confess", with its cross-eyed choral director who on a Sunday morning is reflecting on the circumstances surrounding her mundane existence as a single, unloved woman, and on her job as a nurse, makes feeble attempts at giving authority to this young woman who clings desperately to her faith as she is ill-suited to achieve meaning for her life through any other means. She is critical of those in the church, disdainfully obstinate to those she feels led to evangelize to, and when finally, a patient she has known shows up in dramatic fashion at the conclusion of the service, the story abruptly ends with the two of them staring at each other from across the sanctuary, with an as yet unresolved emotional/spiritual/relational gap between them just as large yet hardly even alluded to.
"Our Lady of Peace" documents the life of another young woman making her way as a teacher into the public school system of inner city Baltimore. From her summer's training, which is merely the approximation of a worst case scenario in which the adult trainees alternately throw temper tantrums in the midst of each others' lessons, to her first months on the job which resemble the hours of her training, albeit with younger antagonists, the story reads as poorly as the young teacher acclimates herself to her new position. The only impetus that compels her to teach is a paycheck and her increasingly strong aversion to newsprint as a toilet paper substitute. Wholly unqualified, holding onto evanescent imagery of smiling, fully involved, and admiring students from the school system's promotional campaign, imagery which never assimilates itself into her personal experience, she is a lamb among wolves in the classroom. With the inability to exert control she takes her share of verbal and even physical abuse from her students and leaves them fully umipressionable and without remorse. As a fool's fool, she takes the cake--timid when the circumstances call for aggression, deferential when she needs to show resolve, utterly stupid. Only when a new student transfers into her class, a girl so disproportinately large to even the boys that she commands all the class' attention, does order then emerge. Feeling allied with her new student who all but literally throws her weight around to bully the other kids of the class into studiously complicit submission, the young teacher finally has, through no effort of her own, inherited favorable conditions for the molding of young minds. However, all is soon lost, as her inability to communicate relevently alienates even her lone supporter and embitters the teacher to no end. A morally ambiguous ending leaves no ambiguity to the question of her competence. She has none.
"The Ant of The Self" tells of a young, under-sized high school debate whiz who in the course of bailing his estranged father out of jail gets pulled into accompanying his old man to the Million Man March on Washington D.C., with the express purpose of selling exotic birds. The title refers to an idiom told of the necessity for blacks to embolden themselves and throw off what it is that oppresses, and throughout the course of the story, it is clear that the kid sees his father essentially as an impediment whom he should send off, which in fact he does at one stage in the story, though only briefly before thinking different. From the dust jacket, one is led to believe that "The Ant of The Self" is a story of divided loyalties, and in a way it is. By going with his father to Washington, the kid is leaving stranded both his mother and debate teammates. At the march itself, he is nearly pummeled for not acknowledging affinity with principles espoused by speakers and other participants, or rather for drawing too clearly, the distinctions among himself and his interrogators.

Shit. I don't want to write anything else about it. Do, read, think what you will.

[QUOTE=the audacity!]Just within the past month I've harnessed my previously painful incapability of quitting on a book until the very end, so with 21 1/2 years of repression giving way…[/QUOTE]

Congratulations. Welcome to the Waste Less Time on Shite club.
There are far too many other books to read/things to do than waste time on something that doesn’t appeal to you.

After Gobo’s first mention of this book I looked into it (but not into the book itself) and found it not to be terribly seducing (which may be unfair to the book, as I’m relying on writing _about_ the book/writer instead of the book itself)…so I don’t know if I agree with your reviews, but damn well written and heartfelt nevertheless.
j(ay)

[FONT=Franklin Gothic Medium]An Invisible Sign of My Own by Aimee Bender. Worth a read. I critiqued someone in the writer's workshop, suggesting some books have opening lines so compelling that they live by themselves throughout the ages. Aimee Bender's opening line caught me right away:

On my twentieth birthday, I bought myself an axe.

It gets better from there.

[/FONT]

I was stuck at my school's library for 4 hours last week, and picked up Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, i remembered coming across this post, so i figured "why not?". I really wasn't impressed; it was just there. I mean, yes, "enjoyable", and all are quick, easy, and oh-so digestable. Well... maybe that's why I wasn't all too crazy about it.
Whatever, there are my two cents. Do what you will.

"Reaping Tenants" by Barbara Belisle was a terrific book. "Bee Season" by Myla Goldberg was very good. I even liked "Back Roads" by Tawni O'Dell and Barbara Kingsolver's first few books.