Random Family

At the beginning of the narrative, Jessica is sixteen. By the end of the book, she is nearly thirty. Jessica is a bright, sensual person who radiates intimacy. This is fitting, as her perennial aim in life is to find romantic love. However, despite her great beauty and sexual competency and desirability, we see her bounce from man to man throughout the course of the book. She even engages in lesbian relationships in prison, which can be seen as a testament to the generosity, openness, and boundlessness of her capacity for intimate love. Ultimately, her hope of finding “the one” man who will complete and adore her is never realized. It is through her depiction of Jessica’s pathos, the resilience of her starry-eyed hope—even after the abandonment and abuse of multiple men and her incarceration—that LeBlanc affirms the woman’s humanity, strength, and complexity. Jessica was sexually abused by her brother Cesar’s father when she was three years old. This trauma haunts her for her entire life. At sixteen, she becomes swept up into the life of the glamorous, dangerous, and high-rolling drug kingpin Boy George, who is barely in his twenties when he becomes a multi-millionaire.