No way out

After 10 years chronicling the lives of teenagers in the Bronx, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc talks about inner-city hopelessness and the hypocrisy of family-values conservatives who ask poor people to abandon their families.

By Sheerly Avni

Feb. 11, 2003 | Adrian Nicole LeBlanc spent more than 10 years researching her new book, "Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx." She tossed and turned on couches while couples fought in the next room. She stole crayons from the children's visiting rooms in federal prisons to get writing materials. She scribbled notes in prison parking lots. She accepted as many collect calls from jail as she could afford. And, finally, she wrote a chronicle of teenage urban life that manages to balance journalistic integrity and objectivity with a striking compassion and respect for her subjects.

For those of us outside the world in which she immersed herself for more than 10 years, it is tempting to imagine the inner city through the images and easy categories we receive from the news, rap songs and the movies: the dope fiend, the high roller, the street punk, the ho, and of course, the welfare mom. LeBlanc instead introduces us to a group of fully fleshed-out individuals. There is Boy George -- brilliant, charismatic and, when we first meet him, one of the most powerful drug dealers in the Bronx. There's his beautiful girlfriend Jessica, and Jessica's brother Cesar, only 14 years old and already in a lifetime of trouble. And finally, there is Coco, Cesar's astonishing girlfriend, whose struggles become the story's focal point. These boys and girls -- now young men and women -- blow our received notions and stereotypes to pieces, and by the end of 400 pages, they have emerged as a group of people we would very much like to know.

The 39-year-old LeBlanc spoke with Salon from her home in New York about the dangers and rewards of writing about the young men and women whom she now says are like family.

How did you first get involved with the group of kids you write about in "Random Family"?

It was basic reporting. I worked at Seventeen magazine as an editor, and somebody pointed out to me that there was a trial of a young teenager who was dealing drugs on a very big scale. I just went to the trial, and if I remember correctly, I got an assignment from Rolling Stone. It was on spec, because I was a young freelancer. They ended up killing the piece. What I remember -- I'm not sure if this is entirely accurate -- is that I said I wanted more time. They just wanted a straight trial piece, and I wanted to keep going. You know how it is -- sometimes you know you have a good story, and if you try to write it too soon, you just derail the whole thing.

And this young man -- with the cars and the women and the stereotypically fabulous ghetto lifestyle -- this was Boy George?

Yes. I'm very interested in teenagers, to begin with, and he was just amazing: bright, charming, smart, enormously successful at business, and young. I had done a lot of street reporting about kids who were disenfranchised one way or another, and I was very struck by the difference between the perceptions of drug dealing, and what I had been seeing. The lifestyle was far more dreary, far less profitable, far less striking than what you'd expect. And Boy George's story was about what it was supposed to be about. I was also curious what it would be like as a single mother to have a young son like this bringing in some necessary income -- how that would affect the family dynamic.

So then I went to the trial and there were a bunch of kids there. In the standard reporter way, I asked him, "Who should I talk to about your life?" He had a lot of girlfriends, and one he said I should talk to was Jessica.

I just became almost immediately riveted by her. For me, a story really only works if I'm very absorbed. These young women were so different from what you hear -- about the girls being conniving, or being gold diggers. The truth was so much more complicated.

You've said in interviews that Coco became like family to you. Was it hard to stay objective as a reporter? Did you find yourself wanting to act in the drama you were reporting -- to help out or give advice?

Coco was so generous, and she gave me extraordinary access -- and I realized immediately that I was no use as an actor. I was in a world I knew nothing about, and everything that I thought I knew was absolutely useless. To say that I would be trying to do something would assume that I thought I knew better. And I didn't.

This is one thing I feel very passionately about: These people have tried every available response to an impossible situation. To survive, they have to be incredibly improvisational, incredibly resourceful. And if you bother to open your eyes in that place, you'll probably know that your ideas of what a person should do are just not applicable.

I often say to people, when they ask me didn't I just want to do something to help: "What was I supposed to do that could possibly change the situation?" This whole book is about how you can try everything, and it can still not work. I think, "Did I miss something in the writing? What do you think I could have done?" Coco tried to bail herself out all the time, constantly. She knew the ropes. How could I have changed that?

Were you ever tempted to bail her out financially?

I was broke, too. I was staying at Coco's house, and she didn't have much money. I was eating her food, so occasionally I'd bring food or take them out to McDonald's. When I visited her upstate, I stayed with her -- because I myself couldn't afford to stay in a hotel.

Some of my favorite moments were when Coco and her kids came up against the social services bureaucracy. You refrain from making political statements about New York, but I was wondering what you think about the state's policies toward the poor?

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