Random Family by N. LeBlanc Critique - Book Report/Review Example

Random Family Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx Order No. 283800 March ‘09 Random Family Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx Abstract Random Family Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx can be considered as one of the best works of investigative journalism. It is about growing up in the Latino ghettos of the Bronx. It is a story about poverty and violence, drug-dealers and young mothers. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, the author of this book and an award-winning investigative journalist spent a decade living with a mixed group of Latinos of Bronx and recorded their lives. The result is a riveting account of the lives and travails of this motley group. She has focused on two Puerto Rican girls in particular. One of them, even before she has turned nineteen, has a baby by one man and twins by his brother. Later she lives lavishly for a few years with a heroin kingpin ending up in a prison. Another girl has two babies by the first girls half brother and later she has three more by three other men. Yet she remains lively and good-humored. Every encounter with her lifts our spirits. The book is mainly a saga of these two girls. The plot of the book is multilayered. Random Family charts the story of generations where girls become mothers and mothers become grandmothers. The story begins in the mid 1980s and first focuses on Jessica Martinez. Jessica is shown as a very misguided girl who is continuously making the wrong choices in life. LeBlanc (2003) introduces her thus: ‘Jessica 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 any thing... Her appearance on the streets in her neighbourhood usually caused a stir.....Jessica was good at attracting boys, but less good at holding on to them. She fell in love hard and fast.” Jessica, at nineteen, knows that her good looks and sex appeal can be put to good use. She is attracted by Boy George, who though in his teens is a wealthy drug kingpin. Boy George starts showering her and her family with luxuries. Eventually Jessica ends up with a ten year prison sentence after pleading guilty of involvement in a narcotics conspiracy. Jessica’s priorities in life are all mixed up. Love and acceptance by a man are foremost in her mind, whereas her children and family are secondary. She was sexually abused as a child and continues to be abused in her teens and adulthood as well. Probably this explains many of her actions. She is shown moving from home to home throughout the novel. In the end when she gets her own apartment she uses it as a storage place and stays with her mother. She does not want to be left alone. Coco the other main character enters the story when she starts dating Cesar who is a half brother of Jessica. She is only 14 then. She is shown as a tough girl who can be sweet at times. She has razor blades in her ponytail and has Vaseline on her face, always ready for street fights. LeBlanc also shows that she has a heart. LeBlanc (2003) describes her as having survived extreme hardship without becoming hard. Coco makes the book less depressing. By the time Coco is twenty she has had five children. Cesar is in prison. Yet Coco is devoted to her children and takes care of them quite well in spite of the adverse conditions. LeBlanc (2003) writes of the children, “Nautica was prone to tantrums and Cocos hands were full with Pearl and her portable oxygen tank. Sometimes Mercedes would fall asleep so deeply that she couldnt be politely roused. It is amazing how she copes with the situation. Along with these two main threads, other stories are woven into the plot. Jessica’s mother gets addicted to cocaine and lives a chaotic lifestyle. The fact that the family is living in East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, where the drug trade is thriving does not make things easier. Jessica’s mother does not involve herself in the raising of Jessica, her siblings or her grandchild. Jessica’s stepfather the only levelheaded person in their lives goes away because of his wife’s addiction. Jessica’s eldest brother too moves out. Jessica’s younger sister follows in her footsteps and gets pregnant. Cesar, Jessica’s favorite brother behaves like a thug. The streets become his home and at fourteen he is about to become a father. There are many twists and turns in the life of Jessica and one gets to see an eloquent description of them. Jessica and Coco flee from family problems and try to run away from their destinies. LeBlanc shows them being chauffeured and whisked to getaways and nightclubs. They are seen on the streets in Lamborghinis and customized James Bond cars. In the meantime friends get murdered, Boy Georges business activities are scrutinized by The DEA and the FBI, Cesar turns a fugitive, Jessica and Coco suffer betrayal and homelessness. Coco moves away from the Bronx and Jessica tries to find comfort in romance. For both, to love is the only remedy. Coco settles in Troy. Le Blanc now concentrates on how Coco struggles with her four children. She has to overcome problems of poverty, housing, health and education of her children. She is always waging a losing battle. Coco is a likeable character with whom one can sympathize. In spite of all the problems she does not take to crime, drugs or violence. For her children come first. In the last part of the book the focus shifts to the younger generation who are also going through troubled times. However the book does end on a happy note. Jessica is out of prison and is reunited with her eldest daughter, who has moved back to the Bronx and is shown celebrating her eighteenth birthday with family and friends. Coco starts working and life becomes easier for her. Cesar is still in prison but is visited by Coco and two daughters with much joy and laughter. I think it is one of the most convincing nonfiction books and is honest and thought-provoking. The author takes a compassionate view of ghetto life and has converted the cold statistics and sensationalism that goes with city life into a soap opera, if I can say so. It is truly a haunting and fascinating account of city life. The lives of the urban poor are mostly chronicled in genres such as newspapers stories, policy reports or sociological studies. One gets to read about the poor in cities in articles on reforms, welfare policies or drugs. Random Family is a book where the author does report and record lives of the underclass in cities, one gets an account of not only about the lives but also the character and temperament of individuals. I found the approach of the author to the subject novel in that she stayed with a troubled family for a long period of time and tracked the events in the lives of the members of the family. This is what I think has made the book extraordinary. The author gives a very impersonal account of the lives of the subjects of the book. She does not impose her personality on the readers. She does not pass judgment on the characters nor does she exploit them by making us either pity or despise them. Jessica’s story could have been written in such a way that we would begin to despise her. But by showing her troubled past, her relations with her deceased father and the importance the family gives to her elder brother we are made to understand her behavior. Random Family is well written and informative giving us a deep insight of the lives of the poor living in cities. I appreciate LeBlanc’s skill in detailing the intricacies of the ghetto world and her ability to gather all the information needed to develop the story as well as she has done. While the book is informative it manages to keep your interest. It can be used as an excellent teaching tool for medical, psychology and social work students. The book may also prove beneficial to health care providers, providing them with a clinical account of the poverty, the problems, despair and trauma the urban American outside the mainstream faces today. One feature I noticed in the book was that LeBlanc does not delve into the issues, the politics or laws or the demography the world faces today. There is no mention of the decline in teenage pregnancies in the past few years or about welfare reforms. There is only a brief mention when she writes In the meantime, national changes in welfare policy had finally caught up with her, and Coco either had to return to school or go to work. However she does show the obstacles a mother like Coco faces in her job, such as the health of her children and not finding the right people to look after her children while at work. There is this incident of her finding her boyfriend, who is supposed to be taking care of her kids while she is in school, taking drugs. The title Random Family is appropriate and gives us an indication of the story line. There are a few questions that go unanswered such as why does Coco keep having children in spite of knowing that having more children will not in any way help her in getting what she wants in life. She wanted a stable partner and a decent house. Many may find the book depressing since it portrays the suffering and helplessness of the urban poor with so much heart-breaking descriptions of the life of one “random” family. However I think the book is not only about despair and suffering. It does offer a ray of hope to the underclass. For example the new welfare law buoys up the spirit of Coco and she starts working again without having to leave her children with a boyfriend who takes drugs. Finally it can be said that Random Family is more about a way of life than anything else. References 1. LeBlanc Nicole (2003), Random Family Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx, Scribner, New York, 2003 Read More

Coco the other main character enters the story when she starts dating Cesar who is a half brother of Jessica. She is only 14 then. She is shown as a tough girl who can be sweet at times. She has razor blades in her ponytail and has Vaseline on her face, always ready for street fights. LeBlanc also shows that she has a heart. LeBlanc (2003) describes her as having survived extreme hardship without becoming hard. Coco makes the book less depressing. By the time Coco is twenty she has had five children.

Cesar is in prison. Yet Coco is devoted to her children and takes care of them quite well in spite of the adverse conditions. LeBlanc (2003) writes of the children, “Nautica was prone to tantrums and Cocos hands were full with Pearl and her portable oxygen tank. Sometimes Mercedes would fall asleep so deeply that she couldnt be politely roused. It is amazing how she copes with the situation. Along with these two main threads, other stories are woven into the plot. Jessica’s mother gets addicted to cocaine and lives a chaotic lifestyle.

The fact that the family is living in East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, where the drug trade is thriving does not make things easier. Jessica’s mother does not involve herself in the raising of Jessica, her siblings or her grandchild. Jessica’s stepfather the only levelheaded person in their lives goes away because of his wife’s addiction. Jessica’s eldest brother too moves out. Jessica’s younger sister follows in her footsteps and gets pregnant. Cesar, Jessica’s favorite brother behaves like a thug.

The streets become his home and at fourteen he is about to become a father. There are many twists and turns in the life of Jessica and one gets to see an eloquent description of them. Jessica and Coco flee from family problems and try to run away from their destinies. LeBlanc shows them being chauffeured and whisked to getaways and nightclubs. They are seen on the streets in Lamborghinis and customized James Bond cars. In the meantime friends get murdered, Boy Georges business activities are scrutinized by The DEA and the FBI, Cesar turns a fugitive, Jessica and Coco suffer betrayal and homelessness.

Coco moves away from the Bronx and Jessica tries to find comfort in romance. For both, to love is the only remedy. Coco settles in Troy. Le Blanc now concentrates on how Coco struggles with her four children. She has to overcome problems of poverty, housing, health and education of her children. She is always waging a losing battle. Coco is a likeable character with whom one can sympathize. In spite of all the problems she does not take to crime, drugs or violence. For her children come first.

In the last part of the book the focus shifts to the younger generation who are also going through troubled times. However the book does end on a happy note. Jessica is out of prison and is reunited with her eldest daughter, who has moved back to the Bronx and is shown celebrating her eighteenth birthday with family and friends. Coco starts working and life becomes easier for her. Cesar is still in prison but is visited by Coco and two daughters with much joy and laughter. I think it is one of the most convincing nonfiction books and is honest and thought-provoking.

The author takes a compassionate view of ghetto life and has converted the cold statistics and sensationalism that goes with city life into a soap opera, if I can say so. It is truly a haunting and fascinating account of city life. The lives of the urban poor are mostly chronicled in genres such as newspapers stories, policy reports or sociological studies. One gets to read about the poor in cities in articles on reforms, welfare policies or drugs. Random Family is a book where the author does report and record lives of the underclass in cities, one gets an account of not only about the lives but also the character and temperament of individuals.

I found the approach of the author to the subject novel in that she stayed with a troubled family for a long period of time and tracked the events in the lives of the members of the family.

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