Daddy Was a Number Runner: A Novel (Contemporary Classics By Women Ser.: Vol. 434)

By: Louise Meriwether

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis: This modern classic is &“a tough, tender, bitter novel of a black girl struggling towards womanhood&” in 1930s Harlem—with a foreword by James Baldwin (Publishers Weekly). Depression-era Harlem is home for twelve-year-old Francie Coffin and her family, and it&’s both a place of refuge and the source of untold dangers for her and her poor, working class family. The beloved &“daddy&” of the title indeed becomes a number runner when he is unable to find legal work, and while one of Francie&’s brothers dreams of becoming a chemist, the other is already in a gang. Francie is a dreamer, too, but there are risks in everything from going to the movies to walking down the block, and her pragmatism eventually outweighs her hope; &“We was all poor and black and apt to stay that way, and that was that.&” First published in 1970, Daddy Was a Number Runner is one of the seminal novels of the black experience in America. The New York Times Book Review proclaimed it &“a most important novel.&”