O. Henry Prize-winning writer Grey Wolfe LaJoie's debut collection, Little Ones, offers 21 bite-size works of fiction that find emotionally piercing stories in unexpected places. While each piece is ostensibly a short story, they reflect as wide a range of genres as they do characters, embracing such forms as the bureaucratic questionnaire in "Questions" and the Wikipedia entry in "Wiki." "Unfished, Unfinished," about an illustrator trying to illustrate, is a clever and psychedelic graphic take on the ars poetica. Meanwhile, even more "traditional" entries like "Ampersand Jansen" and "Interview with the Pope" demonstrate LaJoie's versatility through illustrations in a spectrum of artistic styles that complement their narrative tones.
While LaJoie's ability to slip into different formats and genres is part of what makes this collection refreshing, it's really their willingness to portray such a variety of points of view that make the stories themselves so memorable. "Mention of Flesh" might recount a nameless narrator's struggles to connect with their six-year-old daughter during difficult times, but "Frank" isn't afraid to take on the voice of a chorus of the dead recalling the experiences of a "road-killed raccoon." This range is emphasized by what sometimes feel like purposeful juxtapositions between stories, as with "Interview with the Pope" and the sloppily handwritten "Interview with Horsie," which, while necessarily funny, is also surprisingly heartrending. The ability for LaJoie's work to surprise readers with their emotional heft is never more the case than in "Delivery," in which a wandering dog brings out the best in the people it traverses between. Even among their humor, these stories touch tender spots as they explore underappreciated perspectives. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor