Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bro
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Authors: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
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“One of the most absorbing works of nonfiction I’ve read in some time. . . . The book is a compulsive page-turner because LeBlanc knows her subject so well, the way a great novelist knows her characters.”
—
Newsday
“A seminal work of journalism.”
—
USA Today
“Extraordinary . . . A painstaking feat of reporting and of empathy.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
“A feat of reporting . . . An astonishingly intimate and detailed miniature of life in the South Bronx.”
—
New York Magazine
“Disturbing, complicated, and emotional, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s book will haunt you.”
—
Marie Claire
“A riveting portrait of the other America.”
—
People
“Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s amazing first book documents young, broken lives in and out of love, jail, and the Bronx. Her persistence and patience, along with the honesty and generosity of her subjects, has resulted in a startlingly powerful first book.”
—
O, The Oprah Magazine
“A stunning new glimpse into the sorrow and the pity of America’s inner cities . . . Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s soul-searing study exposes an often-mythologized way of life (kids having kids, doing and dealing drugs, serving time) with a vividness only hinted at in even the most hard-core hip hop portrayals—or in such admired studies of our urban woes as Alex Kotlowitz’s
There Are No Children Here
.”
—
Elle
“Remarkable . . . The great achievement of LeBlanc’s book is the scope of knowledge she conveys about her subjects. The depth and care of her reporting are evident in every sentence. . . . LeBlanc writes this story in a matter-of-fact, almost offhand style, making each tiny revelation all the more resonant for the casual manner in which it arrives. . . . The fact that
after a decade with this family we leave them still wanting to know what happens next is a testament to the power and life of LeBlanc’s work.”
—
Chicago Tribune
“LeBlanc’s reporting illuminates the ugly, static reality of the street. She’s an unflappable narrator.”
—
Entertainment Weekly
“A profound multigenerational account of the daily toils of urban poverty . . . Perhaps the most intimate chronicle of urban life ever published . . . In
Random Family,
the discreet distance—the otherness—of urban poverty quickly disappears and the inner logic of this damaging world emerges.”
—
The Village Voice
“A remarkable up-close and gritty chronicle of family survival in the ghetto. LeBlanc, a veteran journalist, has produced an important work, documenting the daily lives of families forged by love and the harsh necessities of poverty. . . . The predictable chaos and turmoil facing the urban poor, well chronicled in other works, are all here . . . but LeBlanc elevates the form by capturing, too, the humanity and core familial and romantic love that are as powerful as any other force in the complicated dynamics of these relationships.”
—
The Boston Globe
“Remarkable . . . Stunning . . . This book makes human the unrelenting problems of the ghetto. . . . The precarious world
Random Family
depicts, the fragility of life and relationships, is probably more like the sweep of human history than most of us realize.”
—
The New York Observer
“The literary equivalent of a 100-mile dash . . . Powerful . . . Even though it is a work of nonfiction,
Random Family
reads more like a carefully crafted novel than journalism.”
—
The Washington Post
“Quietly observational and therefore piercingly effective.”
—
New York Daily News
“Remarkable . . . The lives of Coco and Jessica are desolate, bleak, and almost entirely without hope. LeBlanc tells their stories with grace and
treats her subjects with a dignity that they may not have experienced before, but they certainly deserve.”
—
San Francisco Chronicle
“An almost cinematic page-turner.”
—
Time Out New York
“Written with candor, sensitivity, and respect,
Random Family
is ultimately more than a hard-luck saga; it’s a universal story of survival and hope.”
—
BookPage
“A chronicle of teenage urban life that manages to balance journalistic integrity and objectivity with a striking compassion and respect for its subjects.”
“Fresh and engrossing . . . Clear-eyed and honest . . . LeBlanc offers no answers, which is the intrinsic beauty and power in her book.”
—
The Raleigh News and Observer
“Should be required reading for every student of journalism.”
—
The New Orleans Times-Picayune
“LeBlanc’s close listening produced this extraordinary book, a rare look at the world from the subjects’ point of view. . . . This fine work deserves attention from policy makers and general readers alike.”
—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
“An observant, gutsy journalist immerses herself in the lives of marginal Bronx residents. Comparisons to Alex Kotlowitz’s
There Are No Children Here
are inevitable and warranted.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“An important, unvarnished portrait of people living in deep urban poverty, beyond the statistics, hip-hop glamour, and stereotypes.”
—
Booklist
“Somehow managing to be both journalistically objective and novelistically passionate, in
Random Family,
Adrian LeBlanc has made a singular contribution to the literature of the American underclass. An unforgettable
and intimate portrait of life in the urban trenches, as much about love and longing as it is about the statistics of despair.”
—Richard Price
“I know no other writer who has dug in as deep as Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. She didn’t just report; she burrowed for years into a world she came to know so well that it lost every speck of foreignness. That astonishing intimacy allowed her to view this book’s random family as one might view one’s own family: with a mixture of exasperation and respect, disappointment and love. If God is in the details, this is a holy book.”
—Anne Fadiman
“In the richness, vitality, and visceral power of its prose,
Random Family
struck me in the same way that Hubert Selby’s classic
Last Exit to Brooklyn
did—with detail-driven force. The stories recounted here, of careening lives and urban struggle, seem both familiar and exotic, for this straightforwardly written, often gripping book reads like a fantastic tale from another world—which happens to be the Bronx. Well done.”
—Oscar Hijuelos
“
Random Family
is a remarkable piece of reportage, an important, up-close window into a tucked-away corner of America. Watching Jessica’s and Coco’s lives unfold over the course of ten years is by turns unsettling and affecting, and their stories have stayed with me. Adrian LeBlanc has written a book that’s epochal in scope and unflinching in its candor. It’s one compelling read.”
—Alex Kotlowitz
“This book has a fresh, even original quality. It is a family saga, but of a most unusual kind, an intimate and detailed portrait of a world that is shamefully hidden away. I read it compulsively, thankful for its candor and above all its fascination.”
—Tracy Kidder
“Adrian Nicole LeBlanc brings to life a world often resisted. Writing in the tradition of James Agee and Walker Evans, she invites us to see in a new way people whose lives are often despised or dismissed.
Random Family
reads like a novel. This is a brilliant, original book.”
—Carol Gilligan
“I was gripped from the first paragraph.”
—Anna Quindlen,
USA Today
For my parents,
Eve Mary Margaret Mazzaferro
and Adrian Leon LeBlanc
. . . Some say that Happiness is not Good for mortals & they ought to be answerd that Sorrow is not fit for Immortals & is utterly useless to any one a blight never does good to a tree & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.
W
ILLIAM
B
LAKE
, letter to W
ILLIAM
H
AYLEY
London, October 7, 1803
The Street
CHAPTER ONE
J
essica lived on Tremont Avenue, on one of the poorer blocks in a very poor section of the Bronx. She dressed even to go to the store. Chance was opportunity in the ghetto, and you had to be prepared for anything. She didn’t have much of a wardrobe, but she was resourceful with what she had—her sister’s Lee jeans, her best friend’s earrings, her mother’s T-shirts and perfume. Her appearance on the streets in her neighborhood usually caused a stir. A sixteen-year-old Puerto Rican girl with bright hazel eyes, a huge, inviting smile, and a voluptuous shape, she radiated intimacy wherever she went. You could be talking to her in the middle of the bustle of Tremont and feel as if lovers’ confidences were being exchanged beneath a tent of sheets. Guys in cars offered rides. Grown men got stupid. Women pursed their lips. Boys made promises they could not keep.