Jason Furman's Reviews > Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx

Coco, Jessica, Mercedes, Serena, George, Cesar, Lourdes. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc does an amazing job bringing all of them--and dozens more--to life in this nonfiction account of growing up in the Bronx in the 1980s and 1990s. Written in extraordinary detail, sometimes mind numbing but that is partly the point, it often seems like a more rich and detailed account of their lives than I could possibly remember of what I did last week or the week before. The book begins in media res and ends abruptly, presumably more dictated by the author's writing schedule than any natural ending to the story--and it being real life there is no natural end to the story because it is not a story.

I appreciated that the book was written with no editorial commentary, no attempts to draw larger lessons, almost no links to the broader debates and changes going on at the time--except to the degree they were directly perceived and affected the participants (e.g., the work requirements in welfare reform). All of that made everything much more credible than if the author had an offer perspective. And, in fact, some of it is more complicated than one might think.

Even absent editorial commentary, many of the injustices of the system are completely apparent and it would take a hard hearted reader not to react with anger. At times I was uncomfortable being a voyeur, unsure if everyone wanted to be depicted in this way, and found the absence of the author in some ways odd--she describes every detail of Coco's day and everyone in her apartment, for example, except presumably for the several hours she spent talking to the author. And was she trying to help or just observing? No great answers to these questions and I certainly will not be the one to judge from a huge distance. But I admit to wondering.

This is one of the must reads of the last quarter century, I had been told to read it repeatedly but only finally got around to it. It is long, but every page is gripping and if there were another 500 or 1,000 pages covering the next 19 years I would read that immediately as well.