Random Family

adrian nicole leblanc

One of the best works of investigative journalism in years, ‘Random Family’ tells the story of growing up in the Latino ghettos of the Bronx, a story of drug-dealers, young mothers, poverty and violence, a family saga like no other.
It's 1985 in the Bronx and teenagers Jessica and Coco are dating drug dealers and getting pregnant. Fifteen years later, they each have five children, Jessica is a grandmother and her drug-dealer boyfriend is serving a life sentence. Welcome to their world.

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, a prize-winning investigative journalist, has spent a decade accompanying and recording the lives of a motley crew of Latinos living in the Bronx. The result is this extraordinary portrait of love, sex and survival, one of the most riveting and highly acclaimed books of the decade.

Genres nonfictionsociologymemoirbiographybook clubnew yorkjournalismpovertyracebiography memoir

424 pages, Paperback

First published January 28,2003

Literary awards

anisfield-wolf book award, borders original voices award, ridenhour book prize, national book critics circle award,

This edition

Format: 424 pages, Paperback
Published: January 1, 2004 by Harper Perennial GB
ISBN: 9780007163434
ASIN: B007YTPRFI
Language: English

About the author

adrian nicole leblanc

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc is an American journalist whose works focus on the marginalized members of society: adolescents living in poverty, prostitutes, and women in prison. She grew up in a working-class family in Leominster, Massachusetts. She studied at Smith College, Oxford, and Yale University. She worked for Seventeen Magazine as an editor after earning her Master's degree in Modern Literature at Oxford. She is best known for her 2003 non-fiction book Random Family. She was a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship -- popularly known as the "Genius Grant" -- in 2006.