Looking for a great non-fiction book to read in the Fall? Well, Random Family by Adrian LeBlanc might just be the book for you.
Conversations have the ability to transform a casual meeting into a more intimate one, connect individual lives to public lives and are a way to get to know and understand another person's way of life and point of view. Many conversationalists are often scared to dive into larger topics, fearing that a heated discussion may lead one to stray, so instead they focus on surface issues where a polite smile and shake of their head is sufficient. Adrian LeBlanc, however, does what most are terrified to do. In her debut book, Random Family, she immediately jumps into the lives of those living in poverty and vividly captures the particulars of the day-to-day. By focusing on the details, LeBlanc, without fear, reveals, in a conversational tone, the individual personalities within the book, and it is these individuals that LeBlanc captures so well.
At the opening of Adrian LeBlanc's Random Family, Jessica is a 16-year-old with "bright eyes . . . " and voluptuous shape"; her boyfriend, Boy George, is a hugely successful heroin dealer; her brother Cesar is a small-time hood; and his girlfriend, Coco, is a "friendly around- the- way- girl" who is soon to be pregnant at fourteen. The reader quickly plunges into these two romances and is introduced to a world of drugs, fancy cars, hot night spots, elaborate parties, expensive vacations, unemployment, homelessness, death and incarceration. As the reader follows the two relationships throughout the book, they find themselves intimately involved in the characters lives, as they would close family friends. Although we may not like the characters, we can't help but care about them. We know that Cesar, with his womanizing and insecurities, may not theoretically be the best match for Coco, but since we become emotionally involved the realism of the situation disappears. The same is true for Jessica, she may annoy the reader at times but whether the reader likes her or not, they are now a part of her network. And although the environment they live in, in some way or another, jails them, there is still a sense of hope that runs throughout the book. Heartbreak seems to give the characters a chance for a new beginning while jail time keeps them away from the troubled streets and gives them time to discover a new way of life.
By capturing the personalities involved in this web of sex, drugs, and violence, Leblanc invites the reader to closely explore the effects of poverty on relationships, individuals, and, most important, family. The individual narratives feed into one another to create an intricate familial network of mothers in their teens and grandmothers in their twenties. With sharp detail and an authentic voice, LeBlanc uncovers the inner workings of generational poverty in the Bronx.
Finally, however, what we are left with is not LeBlanc's opinion or stance on poverty or the character's lives, but the stories themselves. Who Jessica, Boy George, Cesar and Coco are as individuals, and what they mean to each other, is what sticks with the reader after the last page has been read.
