La La Fine relates to animals better than she does to other people. Abandoned by a mother who never wanted a family, raised by a locksmith-turned-thief father, La La looks to pets when it feels like the rest of the world conspires against her. La La’s world stops being whole when her mother abandons her twice. First, when La La falls through thin ice on a skating trip, and again when the accusations of “unfit mother” feel too close to true. Left alone with her father, La La is denied a regular life. She becomes her father’s accomplice, calming the watchdog while he strips families of their most precious belongings. When her father’s luck runs out and he is arrested for burglary, everything La La has painstakingly built unravels.

In R.L. Maizes’ debut collection, characters are treated as outsiders because of their sexual orientation, racial or religious identity, or simply because they look different. A young man courts the publicity that comes from outing himself at his bar mitzvah. When a painter is shunned because of his appearance, he learns to ink tattoos that come to life. A paranoid Jewish actuary suspects his cat of cheating on him --- with his Protestant girlfriend. Readers will recognize themselves in these stories and in these protagonists, whose backgrounds are vastly different from their own --- we’ve all been outsiders at some point.