Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and the extinction

When I found out Monday afternoon that Adrian Nicole LeBlanc was speaking at the City University of New York this past Tuseday, I more or less postponed my life to be there. I've read her first (and so far only) nonfiction book RANDOM FAMILY four -- maybe five times? -- definitely at least four, cover to cover. I read it and I'm dazzled by the work that went into it, the lyric quality of the writing, that it's beautiful and true and, ultimately, heartbreaking.

Who could have written such a book? "Who" turned out to be a short, curly-haired woman with a dry wit, prone to aphorisms that will make you get a notebook out. Modest, but not in a fake way. Sees herself as a reporter first, and a writer second, but asserts that anyone could have written her study of teenagers and drug dealers in the Bronx. Anyone could go out and report that story?

Not anyone. This woman, who often refers to her years of note-taking and tape-recording (and sometimes, forgetting to do either during her subjects' busy days) as "the fieldwork" and says she doesn't even remember RANDOM FAMILY's warm published reception because her father was being treated for cancer, ultimately dying just after the book's release.

It's hard to shake the feeling, even as LeBlanc references the journalism class she's teaching at CUNY this semester, that that mold has been fundamentally fractured in a way. Writers in the crowd, can you imagine spending 10 years on a project now? And being able to live and continue working in the meantime (LeBlanc wasn't exactly holed in a garret, she did earn 2 master's degrees while working on RANDOM FAMILY)? Ten years. It boggles the mind. (Ten years ago I could barely see past my next AP test and/or the end of the world, for the record.) And she didn't have a book deal all that time -- it's one thing for an established author to work for 10 years on something, but another for a first-timer.

The consolation for all of us is that while they may not make reporters like her any more, she is still working -- readying a second book now, on struggling comedians (excerpts from which she read Tuesday night). That has to be enough for now.