Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bro (79 page)

4. We meet Cesar as a young boy sitting on “the broken steps of his mother’s building, biding his time, watching the older boys who ruled the street.” Who were his male role models? According to their example, what did becoming a man entail? How did this understanding of manhood prepare Cesar for prison? How did his definition of masculinity change over time?

5. For the teenage girls in
Random Family,
what are the attractions of being a mother? What sort of power and influence, real or imagined, are associated with the role?

6. Describe the role of social service agencies in Coco’s life. Describe the ways in which their treatment of her enhanced or undermined her own sense of agency.

7. By conventional standards, Elaine and Iris are more successful than their sisters. What qualities and actions were instrumental in achieving that success? What price did they pay for it? How do their strategies confirm or challenge traditional notions about the supportive functions of families?

8. Explore the reasons why the households in this book are often in a state of flux. Why do people move? What are the advantages and disadvantages of relocation? Do men and women move for the same reasons?

9. Many of the characters in
Random Family
continue to be optimistic, even cheerful, despite extremely difficult lives and setbacks. When and how can hope be a sustaining force and when and how can it be a destructive one? Discuss.

10. The author writes, “The sexual threat men posed to little girls was so pervasive that even the warnings meant to avert it were saturated with
fatalism.” Explore the ways in which the ubiquity of sexual abuse in the world of the book affects the characters’ attitudes about it.

11. None of the young people in the book blame their circumstances for the choices they made, yet much of the public discussion of the poor uses terms that infer moral and personal blame. Why do you think this is? Would you assign blame for the tragedies described here? To whom? Why?

12. Political activists often complain about society’s “crisis approach” to poverty, how basic supports are only granted in emergencies. Are there examples of this in the book? What alternate strategies would improve the lives of children like Mercedes?

13. Have your ideas about poverty and privilege changed since reading
Random Family
? Were there moments when you particularly empathized with the people in this book? Were there moments that you felt particularly alienated? If so, when and why?

14. The author, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, interacted with these families for over a decade and was witness to most of the events that took place, yet she is not present in the narrative. How might this have been a different book if she had included herself as a character? Why does she leave herself out?

15. In an interview about the title, the author described her ongoing interest in the families teenagers form among their friends and the appeal of self-created families. Have “random families” played an important role in your own life?

Look for more Simon & Schuster reading group guides online and download them for free at
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.

A
New York Times Book Review
Editors’ Choice of 2003

Also named one of the Best Books of 2003 by:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Chicago Tribune

The Economist

Entertainment Weekly (Number One Nonfiction Pick)

People

Publishers Weekly

San Francisco Chronicle

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Village Voice

SCRIBNER

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Copyright © 2003 by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

First Scribner trade paperback edition 2004

SCRIBNER
and design are trademarks of Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work.

DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING

Text set in Electra

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Scribner edition as follows:

LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole.

Random family: love, drugs, trouble, and coming of age in the Bronx / Adrian Nicole LeBlanc.

p. cm.

1. Urban poor—New York (State)—New York—Case studies. 2. Youth—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 3. Youth—Drug use—New York (State)—New York. 4. Family—New York (State)—New York—Case studies. 5. Inner cities—New York (State)—Case studies. 6. Bronx (New York, N.Y.)—Social conditions. 7. New York (N.Y.)—Social conditions. I. Title.

HV4046.N6 L4 2002

974.7'275043—dc21

    2003026673

ISBN 0-684-86387-1

0-7432-5443-0 (Pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4391-2489-5 (eBook)