A tale from the Bronx

Random Family

By Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

Publisher: Flamingo (£17.99)

LeBlanc spent ten years in the Bronx documenting life there. The results form a panoramic portrait of a community that exists almost entirely without structure or identity.

At the centre are drug dealer George and teenagers Jessica and Coco, who drift through endless pregnancies, drug-dealing, part-time jobs, theft, sex and men and whose lives exemplify the chaos of a social cycle that, LeBlanc suggests, has no end.

It is a meticulous piece of detached observation that, at 400 pages, feels overlong, but which gives a compelling human face to a rootless existence without recourse to judgement or sentiment.