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Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

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Aug 04, 2007 Recynd rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, political-social-historical, loved-it, all-time-favorites

I read "Random Family" several years ago, but while I was scrolling through my book list it caught my eye and got me thinking about it once again. I can't recall why I didn't write a comprehensive review at the time (maybe I read it before I joined GoodReads?), but I didn't. Experience has taught me that my notably poor memory only gets worse with time, so I won't embarrass myself or unintentionally mislead potential readers with erroneous details, but I think I CAN manage to write a reasonably I read "Random Family" several years ago, but while I was scrolling through my book list it caught my eye and got me thinking about it once again. I can't recall why I didn't write a comprehensive review at the time (maybe I read it before I joined GoodReads?), but I didn't. Experience has taught me that my notably poor memory only gets worse with time, so I won't embarrass myself or unintentionally mislead potential readers with erroneous details, but I think I CAN manage to write a reasonably helpful opinion.

By turns sociological ethnography, current affairs journalism, and anthropological study, "Random Family" successfully bridges the gap between pop social issue expose and academic social science dissertation. With its intrinsically interesting subject matter, "Random Family" manages to appeal to the broadest audience possible without succumbing to the most common of the pitfalls that plague this corner of the non-fiction world: the over-simplification of content (aka: “dumbing down”) to the point of insult (think of such sub-genres as Celebrity Expose, True Crime, or Bleak Memoir), or overly academic, dry-as-a-bone writing ("Gulag").

Without resorting to sensationalism or fear mongering (all too common ploys I’ve come to expect from investigative pieces), author Adrian LeBlanc instead offers this uncompromising look at multi-generational poverty without exaggeration, finger pointing or excuse making. Though the subjects of “Random Family” mostly belong to a loosely-related group of Puerto Rican females living in and around the Bronx in the early 1990s, the larger issue of self-, group-, and government-perpetuated poverty, compounded by factors including illiteracy, drug abuse, babies born without benefit of wedlock, and government “assistance”, is as big of a problem today as in any time in recent memory.

By choosing to follow a select few individuals to represent an entire population, LeBlanc succeeds in putting a human face upon the statistics. She treats her subjects respectfully, but she doesn’t patronize or pity them. While I doubt if “Random Family” goes very far towards solving the larger issue of poverty, it does contribute towards an increased public awareness...and provides an interesting and insightful look at a generally invisible population. ...more

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Aug 22, 2007 Erin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, book-club, favorites

Informative, moving, heartbreaking, amazing. I can't say enough about this book. LeBlanc puts you squarely inside the lives of Jessica, Coco, Cesar and George, their children, relatives and friends in this unflinching portrait of life in the inner-city - the drugs, the horrible schools, the prisons that so many of the residents eventually call home. Even if you think you know poverty, you've never read anything like this. I'm dying to find out what happened to all these people whom I came to car ...more

2 likes · Like · see review