FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN | by John Brantingham

a review of Grey Wolfe LaJoie’s Little Ones

Grey Wolfe LaJoie’s Little Ones explores the idea of outsider status in its both style and content. Reading this collection, I was confronted again and again by the concept of difference, feeling outside of the mainstream. LaJoie’s style, which is often non-narrative and often defies classification in any way, slipping into hybrid forms, hermit crab essays, and forms that are completely their own, bring us into the mind and perspective of those who do not necessarily have the belief system or point-of-view that has been pushed upon those who follow traditional and academic writing styles. Instead they allow for a more fluid understanding of storytelling. Their characters and the situations those characters are pushed into help us to see the world as outsiders.

The final story, “Wiki” exemplifies the emotion of the collection. In it, we are given what looks to be a Wikipedia article about LaJoie’s youth. In it, they are unable to fit into their society as a young person and seem to have no interest in doing so. That does not mean, however, that they do not feel ostracized. They write:

“LaJoie attended Isaac Dickson Elementary where, in their first week of kindergarten, they were incapable of differentiating between the symbols for “GIRLS” and “BOYS” when they went to use the restrooms and, unable yet to read and too shy to ask anyone, they quietly wet their pants.”

This captures the disconnect that many people feel to traditional gendering, and the alienation that might not be universal but certainly common. While we might not have experienced this exact situation, their writing is strong enough to help those of us who have not felt accepted feel seen and understood. Forming this as a Wikipedia article links us to a new way of reading and understanding the world. These kinds of quick online articles are part of the way we sort the universe. They are part of the way that we think and understand now, and if we feel disconnected from traditional ways of thinking and seeing, it is in part because we are given a reading diet that is also disconnected from those ways of thinking and seeing.

The characters often have this sense that LaJoie’s autobiographical character in “Wiki” has in that they are pushed out and put into a position where they must understand reality in their own terms rather than those ways that are presented to them. In “Frank,” Frank, an undead raccoon that is roadkill, is forced by his death to face mortality and his essential aloneness in this world. He wanders about thinking about the ants devouring him from the inside out and the concept of God, which he has stumbled on after he has been killed. There is situational humor in presenting Frank as the protagonist, but Frank is like us all at the end, alone and having to face death by ourselves.

But if alienation and loneliness are the conditions of our lives, LaJoie offers readers ironically simplistic advice that turns out to have a more complex meaning. “How Come All the Schools Shutted Down: a Guide for Children Living in the End Times” is structured like a pamphlet from the end of the world, telling children how to survive. With advice sections like “ANGER only deepens your suffering,” and “DEATH is a natural part of life” the pamphleteer offers pablum to children who have witnessed the death of their parents and now have to survive as roaming street gangs and packs of feral dogs threaten to kill them. The dark humor of this lies in the kind of sweet nothings offered to kids in distress, and in the fact that this is the kind of advice we do actually offer to children who face grave difficulty. It is the kind of empty advice that we all receive when faced with loss.

The structure of the pamphlet is interesting as well as it uses the kind of environmental storytelling that one might find in an amusement park line or in an open-world video game. We take the elements we see and construct a story out of what must have happened. LaJoie leaves it to us to structure the story based on post-apocalyptic narratives that we’re already familiar with. Rather than telling us what wiped out the world, they let us figure it out. This structure forces us to reread and skip around, going over the pamphlet as we would read an actual one. In the way that Virginia Woolf or John Dos Passos developed new ways to understand structure to fit an early 20th century sensibility, LaJoie is creating a new approach to narrative that reflects the way that we gather information and create story.

Little Ones at once rejects and accepts mainstream storytelling techniques. LaJoie is not engaging in new forms for their own sake but allowing the meaning of the story to direct structure. Some of their stories are straightforward narratives, and others are created. LaJoie is a master of both approaches, and the result is a collection that is eclectic and fascinating.

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