Description
Biggest Little Girl
a novel by Jodi Angel
ISBN: 978-1-956440-41-6 paperback $21.95
ISBN: 978-1-956440-42-3 ebook $9.99
March 2023
In Biggest Little Girl, 14-year-old Joey has run away from home in smalltown California in search of anything better. She’s got a few dollars and a bus ticket north, but at a truck stop just 30 miles from home, she meets Jerry with his gold watch and wad of cash. Jerry buys Joey a hamburger and offers her a job in Reno—making deliveries—and desperate for someone to trust, she accepts. In Reno, the Biggest Little City in the World, shacked up in a motel, Jerry cuts off Joey’s hair, gives her new clothes, and sends her out to run envelopes into casinos in exchange for money. Joey makes a new group of friends at the motel, all teenagers, and when Joey falls for the ringleader, Amber, they all start making big plans to scam Jerry and run to Portland like a makeshift family. It doesn’t take long before everything starts to dissolve when the suppliers get shorted, Jerry gets desperate, and the future becomes a gamble with a deck that has already been stacked against her.
This is a survival story.
What people are saying about Biggest Little Girl:
Jodi Angel is a rock star. Jodi Angel is one of my literary idols. Anything she writes is solid gold wrapped in black leather. This novel is gorgeous. —Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels and The Water Museum
Every sentence of Biggest Little Girl is pure poetry. Gritty, beautiful, and raw, Jodi Angel takes her characters — and her readers — on one hell of a ride. Hold on. —Jennifer Pashley, author of The Watcher, The Scamp, and The Conjurer
Jodi Angel is the author of two story collections, The History of Vegas and You Only Get Letters from Jail, which was named as a Best Book of 2013 by Esquire. Her work has appeared in Esquire, Tin House, One Story, Zoetrope: All-Story, Electric Literature Recommended Reading, and Byliner, among other publications and anthologies. Her short story, “Snuff,” was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2014. She grew up in a small town in Northern California—in a family of girls.
kpdavis –
I don’t think there is anybody who can put together a sentence like Jodi Angel. She packs a lot into her stories–a lot of attitude. She’ll drag you along with Joey, though you want to scream, “Joey, don’t do it!”