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
Meeting to plan books for next year.
There has been a lot in the news recently about the University of Minnesota Medical School, University of Minnesota Physicians, and Fairview Health Services. Please join us at breakfast on January 8 for a respectful and engaging discussion of their relationship.
The theme for January is great MN views.
52 Loaves: One Man's Relentless Pursuit of Truth, Meaning, and a Perfect Crust by William Alexander will be the selection for discussion when the UMRA Book Club gathers via Zoom for its first monthly meeting of 2026.
Developing a sense of identity is a central psychological task of the lifespan. Memories and stories from our personal past, as well as cultural memories and stories in society play key roles in how we develop our identities. This presentation will discuss psychological theory and research on how memories and stories make us who we are.
When you are of Icelandic descent you can trace your ancestors back to around 1200 and sometimes further.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
Here’s another great opportunity to buy discounted tickets and join your UMRA friends to cheer for the Gophers when the Women’s Basketball team hosts the Purdue Boilermakers at Williams Arena in Minneapolis on February 1.
Join fellow UMRA members for a morning hike in Theodore Wirth Park to celebrate Groundhog Day on Monday, February 2.
UMRA’s special event for this winter will again be a celebration of brighter days and the approaching end of winter. We’ll have food, fellowship, and music provided by Urban Sound, one of the University’s premier student a cappella ensembles.
Family history with Jim Kurle. A tale of Swedish emigration to Dunn County, North Dakota, including my grandfather whose unusual relationship to several churches and religion in general was one of the reasons for his emigrating.
UMRA’s Cabinets of Curiosity tour on Thursday, February 12, will offer an inside look into the rich resources of the University Libraries Borchert Map Library. Map Librarian Ryan Mattke will showcase the treasures and innovations of one of the largest map libraries in the U.S.
Growing Up by Russell Baker.