Book Notes | ‘Random Family’
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc is No. 25 on The New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st century list. LeBlanc spent 10 years hanging out with one loosely defined family while she tracked its fate.
The book, published in 2003, focuses on two Puerto Rican girls, Jessica and Coco. We first meet Jessica as a 16-year-old whose main pursuit was attracting men and boys. By the time she was 19, Jessica had a baby with one man and a set of twins with the man’s brother. Still, for a couple of years in the late ’80s, Jessica enjoyed a kind of luck with a local “Mr. Big,” called Boy George, who was a heroin dealer and rich. But he beat her for disobeying him, and kept her locked in the apartment he rented for her. And when he went to prison for life, Jessica went to prison soon after, having refused to cooperate with the police in exchange for immunity.
An "unflinching documentary"
Coco comes into the story when, at age14, she starts dating Jessica's half-brother, Cesar, a thug-in-training who shows signs of sweetness and regret. By the time Coco turns 20, she has five children—two by Cesar, who is by then serving a nine-year prison sentence, and one each by three other men—and she is shuttling between bleak housing projects in the Bronx and in Troy, New York. Yet, she is devoted to her children, one of whom is born very prematurely.
LeBlanc is descriptive, not analytical. Random Family has been described as "a book that exerts the fascination of a classic, unflinching documentary." One review pointed out the colonialist, de-humanizing premise of a white woman making field notes, a là Jane Goodall, of a minority household for the consumption of a largely white and relatively affluent audience.
Most UMRA Book Club members did not care for the book. They found it depressing, with too many characters, and thought it presented more questions than answers. A few found the book interesting, and felt they learned from it.
—Diane Madlon-Kay, UMRA Book Club I
Book Club I in April
Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 2pm
The UMRA Book Club will discuss Random Family by journalist Adrian Nicole LeBlanc when it meets via Zoom at 2 p.m. on Friday, April 18, 2025.
Subtitled Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx, the nonfiction book threads two romances into a saga that immerses the reader in the intricacies of street-corner society and drugs in the ghetto world of the Bronx.
Originally published in 2003, the book has been described in The New Yorker as “authoritative and enthralling” and in The New York Times as "a book that exerts the fascination of a classic, unflinching documentary."
Email Pat Tollefson for more information.
Upcoming Events
Morris Campus Retirees will host a Zoom meeting. Morris Campus Retirees are part of the University of Minnesota Retiree Association (UMRA). The group has already held two meetings in its first year of existence.
Peter Moe, retired Minnesota Landscape Arboretum director and UMRA member, will be leading a hiking tour of the Arboretum again this year. The amazing tulip display was at its peak for our hike last year, and we will undoubtedly enjoy seeing many spring-blooming trees, shrubs, wildflowers, and perennials. Plan to stay for lunch together (optional) after the hike at the Rootstock café in the Oswald Visitor Center.
UMRA’s Family History Interest Group will meet via Zoom on Wednesday, May 7, for an open discussion of ideas, insights, questions, and issues related to family history, and to discuss topics for next year’s meetings.
We will revisit the University of Minnesota Archives, with its major holdings largely tucked away in two huge underground caverns along the Mississippi River under the West Bank campus, holds the essential records of our University of Minnesota’s past. University Archivist Erik Moore will interpret the holdings and bring out a sampling of what it holds. We will also get a tour of the caverns (Minnesota Library Access Center), revealing where these precious materials are housed, including the original tapes of KUOM, now Radio K.
Cancer has touched all of us. If you are willing to share your cancer journey or talk about your experience with a person you have supported, please consider attending the May 8 UMRA breakfast gathering at The Original Pancake House in Roseville.
You are cordially invited to this presentation by Andy Whitman, Professor, Attorney, Volunteer Financial Planner. He will discuss investments for your grandchildren.
The UMRA Photo Club is having a photo shoot at the Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 13.
Financial scams are a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, and learning how to spot and avoid scams is more important than ever to your financial health. For UMRA’s May workshop, Jay Haapala, leader of AARP’s Fraud Watch Network, will share with us the latest criminal trends in scamming and how to avoid them.
The UMRA Book Club will discuss The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon when it meets via Zoom on May 16.
.Wood Lake Nature Center is a peaceful 150-acre cattail marsh, woodland, and restored prairie that is a haven for migrating birds and waterfowl. This UMRA hike is a great opportunity for those who would like a shorter, easier hike. The trails are dirt, grass, and woodchip, with some bridges and a bit of paved trails. Only a couple small hills to navigate, the park is mostly flat.
University of Minnesota Regent Penny Wheeler, MD, will be the featured guest for the UMRA luncheon forum on May 20. In place of the usual speech format for our forums, Regent Wheeler will be interviewed by UMRA member and liaison to the Board of Regents John Finnegan, professor and dean emeritus of the U of M School of Public Health.
I, Claudius by English writer Robert Graves, published in 1934, will be up for discussion when UMRA's Fourth Friday Book Club meets via Zoom on May 23.
The UMRA Book Club will discuss The Great River by Boyce Upton when it meets via Zoom on June 20.
Learn about writing memoirs, technology for seniors, campus architecture, and more at the fourth annual Age-Friendly University Day to be held in the McNamara Alumni Center on the Twin Cities campus in Minneapolis on Monday, June 23.
Catch up with friends and former colleagues, meet new UMRA members, enjoy delicious food, and participate in the third annual UMRA Summer Social Quiz at the Como Lakeside Pavilion in St. Paul on Wednesday, June 25.