 |
|
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, 409 pp, $14, ISBN 0-7432-5443-0, New York, NY, Scribner, 2003.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2004;158:1019-1020.
|
|
| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings. |
|
|
|
But Mercedes (10 yo) had already had more than enough hardship and fear. . . . Her father was in prison. Terrifying seizures plagued her little sister. Drugs rendered the adults she loved incoherent. . . . Sadness threatened to engulf every corner if her anger couldn’t keep it at bay. Fear organized whole seasons of Mercedes’ experience, and she was probably still frightened: she just didn’t show it anymore.
As a general pediatrician in the South Bronx, trained to serve the underserved, I believed I understood the social issues that my patients encounter and how these impact their health. In her first book, LeBlanc has clearly demonstrated to me how much I am yet sheltered from the realities of my patients’ lives.
This book is a documentary of the lives of members of an extended family living in the Bronx, NY, during the 1990s. The story opens with an introduction to Jessica, a beautiful, ambitious, . . . [Full Text of this Article] AUTHOR INFORMATION
Iman Sharif, MD, MPH, Reviewer
|
