Random Family

“Jessica lived on Tremont Avenue, on one of the poorer blocks in a very poor section of the Bronx. She dressed even to go to the store. Chance was opportunity in the ghetto, and you had to be prepared for anything. She didn’t have much of a wardrobe, but she was resourceful with what she had—her sister’s Lee jeans, her best friend’s earrings, her mother’s T-shirts and perfume. Her appearance on the streets in her neighborhood usually caused a stir. A sixteen-year-old Puerto Rican girl with bright hazel eyes, a huge, inviting smile, and a voluptuous shape, she radiated intimacy wherever she went.” 

These are the opening lines of Random Family. Through them, we are introduced both to Jessica and her salient characteristics—resourcefulness, physical beauty, magnetism, and warmth of spirit—and LeBlanc’s authorial style. The book, and this passage, are characterized by LeBlanc’s fastidious dedication to depicting minute details, and the downplaying of LeBlanc’s own presence, as she allows her subjects to both speak for themselves and be spoken of by those that know them well. Too, a Jessica that commands attention and is intelligently aware of her surroundings, as well as any and all possibilities that those surroundings may create, is an enduring image that will express itself repeatedly throughout the narrative.

“Coco might have instinctually understood that success was less about climbing than about not falling down. Since there were few real options for mobility, people in Coco’s world measured improvement in microscopic increments of better-than-whatever-was-worse. These tangible gradations mattered more than the clichéd language of success that floated blandly out of everyone’s mouth, like fugitive sentiments from a Hallmark card. Girls were going to ‘make something of themselves’ as soon as the baby was old enough; boys were going to ‘do right’ and ‘stay inside’; everyone was going back to school. But better-than was the true marker. Thick and fed was better than thin and hungry. Family fights indoors—even if everyone could hear them—were better than taking private business to the street. Heroin was bad, but crack was worse.”

In this quote, LeBlanc incisively articulates the curtailed standards of success in the ghetto. Instead of having a solid and reachable ideal, Coco and those within her community instead measure success by how far someone was above absolute rock bottom. The poignancy of essentially using failure as the yardstick for success speaks to the severe limitations placed upon the lives of Coco and those around her. This quote also reveals a depth of sensitivity and detail that characterizes LeBlanc’s writing. She plumbs small subtleties in order to mine them for greater meanings.