Little Ones

A collection of fiction and graphic ephemera, Little Ones plays in a space of shadows and in-betweens.

Informed by Appalachian experience and traditions of Southern storytelling, these award-winning stories are populated by the world’s dispossessed, disturbed, and disregarded: the quiet interior life of a passed-over laborer, the bedtime story a goose tells a snake about a boy named Grey, moments of a road-killed raccoon's afterlife, advice to the children of a future apocalypse. 

These mischievous polyvocal tales are an exercise in audacity, in embracing the bizarre and carnivalesque within us. Grey Wolfe LaJoie employs uncanny wit and deep empathy to explore the way shame can turn into desperate violence, and to shed light on the smallest among us.

Praise for Little Ones

“This is utterly unforgettable work. I have longed for a new book to startle me with something new, and this one did. Inside these pages, we come to know the dreams of dogs and the thoughts of horses and geese, and they don’t disappoint. These stories are truly wild yet seamlessly unspooling. This is a book that should garner insistent praise.” —Glenn Taylor, author of The Songs of Betty Baach

“The first time I read Grey Wolfe LaJoie's Little Ones I read it because I was sucked in by its beauty and gravitas. The second time I read the book I read it to see how LaJoie pulled it off. I still haven't figured it out. This is a haunting, touching debut, as powerful as it is mysterious.” —Wiley Cash, author of When Ghosts Come Home

“Little Ones is holy! Exciting! Original and strange! It says, ‘Shhh…listen to that little voice deep down inside. Remember it? That’s your imagination. And it’s the only way you’ll survive.’ Grey Wolfe Lajoie has blessed us for now and forever! I’ll never see the world the same again!” —Ashleigh Bryant Phillips, author of Sleepovers

“The characters in Little Ones are more than their quirks. They read as flesh-and-blood individuals LaJoie seems to have stopped on their travels to receive their stories. The tales are heartbreaking and moving, insightful and frightening. We could spend decades learning from them.” —Abby N. Lewis, Chapter 16

“Form is up for grabs in this Southern gothic collection of 21 unique works that uses graphic ephemera to round out LaJoie’s storytelling. The horrific and sad, the downtrodden and absurd, the macabre and the grotesque, all the hallmarks of compelling Southern gothic storytelling are on full display in Grey Wolfe LaJoie’s inventive Little Ones. Life is cruel, humans are harsh and animals pay the price in this inventive and memorable free-form collection.” —Leah Tyler, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Little Ones will return to whimsy even the most cynical adult readers. Yes, violence, addiction, rot, loneliness, and dread do seep through every narrative. But an innocence, a childlike eye makes fresh these sordid old tales. LaJoie is an author skilled in subversion, sprinkling unexpected details into each story. A product of Western North Carolina, they possess an insight and empathy towards the region that makes each story sing. And so, Little Ones joins a long tradition of Southern storytelling, reminiscent of folk tales told as a treat, a haunt, a lesson.”  —Mariya Kurbatova, The Arkansas International

“Grey Wolfe LaJoie’s debut story collection, Little Ones, mixes fairy tales, fables, and the bizarre for one wholly original and quite dazzling book.” —Bradley Sides, Southern Review of Books