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Daddy Was a Number Runner: A Novel by [Louise Meriwether, James Baldwin]

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James Baldwin

Louise Meriwether

Daddy Was a Number Runner: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Louise Meriwether (Author), James Baldwin (Foreword, Introduction) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 282 ratings

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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.”

Print length

235 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

The Feminist Press at CUNY
Publication date

December 1, 2002
File size

1694 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Louise Meriwether has taught creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Review

For Francie, childhood in 1930s Harlem means having one brother in the gangs and another who gives up his dream of being a chemist because "how many firms gonna hire a black chemist?" It's having a big, beautiful father who can't find legal work and a mother who defies her husband and hires out as domestic labor in order to keep the family from starving. Childhood for Francie is having household chores like attaching the jumper to get free electricity and facing the disdain of Mrs. Burnett when she buys groceries from her on credit. It's avoiding the groping hands of the butcher, the baker and the fat little white man who sits next to her in the theater, or maybe not avoiding them for the extra meat, rolls, or dime they might offer. It means reading "smutty" comic books and walking down 118th street where the prostitutes work, but not knowing what is happening when her period starts. Francie's Harlem is a powerful, pent-up place, where dreams and good people are changed and destroyed, a neighborhood with strength and beauty, love and friendship, all trying to grow like plants without soil or water. And for Francie, during the year she turns from twelve to thirteen, living in Harlem means exchanging her longing for the white-hatted cowboy in the movies for a feeling of kinship with the Indians and a realization of what it means to be black and female in the United States. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00CCTXRR0
Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Feminist Press at CUNY (December 1, 2002)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 1, 2002
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1694 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 235 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #386,270 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #105 in Women Author Literary Criticism
- #272 in Black & African American Literary Fiction
- #330 in African American Studies

Customer Reviews:
4.6 282 ratings

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James Baldwin
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James Baldwin (1924-1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic, and one of America's foremost writers. His essays, such as "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-twentieth-century America. A Harlem, New York, native, he primarily made his home in the south of France.
His novels include Giovanni's Room (1956), about a white American expatriate who must come to terms with his homosexuality, and Another Country (1962), about racial and gay sexual tensions among New York intellectuals. His inclusion of gay themes resulted in much savage criticism from the black community. Going to Meet the Man (1965) and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1968) provided powerful descriptions of American racism. As an openly gay man, he became increasingly outspoken in condemning discrimination against lesbian and gay people.
Photo by Allan warren (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Louise Meriwether
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Louise Meriwether is an American novelist, essayist, journalist, and activist. In 1970, she published her first and critically acclaimed book, Daddy Was a Number Runner (with an introduction by James Baldwin), using autobiographical elements about growing up in Harlem during the Depression and in the era after the Harlem Renaissance. She has since written short stories that have appeared in Antioch Review and Negro Digest, as well as biographies for children about historically important African Americans, including Robert Smalls, Daniel Hale Williams, and Rosa Parks. Meriwether has also taught creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Houston.
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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

282 global ratings

5 star		68%
4 star		23%
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1 star		1%

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Pr. Clifton J McMillan, Sr

Excellent Read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 4, 2023

Verified Purchase

This is a dynamic presentation of Harlem in its historical context, yet it’s issues relating to class, gender, race and education still perplex us here in the 21st Century. The recognition of sexual abuse (Human Trafficking) plagues our community then and now!
Much food for thought and hope for radical change! Excellent, throughly
Nuanced characters seen through innocent eyes! It stirred a plethora of emotions!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 8, 2023

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A good read. I know many of these people from my own neighborhood, the projects in the fifties. We always helped each other out.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 15, 2022

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A must read. A year in the life of 1930's Harlem New York as seen thru the eyes of an adolescent girl. The struggles of being poor, together with other people, and the events that take place for everyone is sad but true story of my people.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 18, 2022

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Product arrived as described. Book was wrapped well to prevent damage.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

@Earthatone

A CLASSIC COMING-OF-AGE TALE

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 25, 2019

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Here’s Harlem’s signature, a classic, coming-of-age tale that is as gripping, as if written this morning. The story of Francis is inappropriately amusing, more so, painfully sad. Francie’s existence is familiar, routine, and her dangers are typical and egregious. During the Post-Depression Era, in Harlem, Black was so beautiful that everyone chose to try to take advantage. Here, our options seemed bleaker than most. Kudos to Louise Merriweather for having the courage to deliver with timeless skill, insight, vision, impact, wit, and depth and for bringing all of these character dynamics into focus through Francie’s perspective. There is a stark realization that even in 2019 not much as changed. Each person will interpret this story a different way, making it ideal fodder for discussion and open dialogue in and around young girls, sexuality, and especially the #MeToo Movement.

Eartha Watts Hicks
author/publisher
Editor-in-Chief at Harlem World Magazine
PR Writer for Black PR.com

8 people found this helpful

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Felicia Louise

Awesome condition

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 10, 2021

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I was expecting this book to be well used and worn but it's actually in excellent condition. I read this book when I was in high school and I loved it. I'm starting my own little library in my She-Shed and I'm ordering all my favorites in hard copy. I will definitely purchase more books from you guys! Thank you!

2 people found this helpful

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Nora Green

Really great historical fiction

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 15, 2017

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I read this book when I was a teenager, and these many years later I still remember the impact it had on me then. Some thirty years later, I see this book from an adult perspective. Francie takes you to her home, the ghetto in Harlem. She introduces you to her family, her friends, her neighbors. Through the book, all the personalities are developed beautifully. This book has it all. It is heartwarming, gritty, funny, , cruel. It is about the day to day of a poor black family during The Depression. It took me right there. I grew up in an urban environment many years later, but there are so many things that haven't changed a whole lot.
This book is amazing. Find the time to read it. It is unforgettable.

9 people found this helpful

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Harlem's Great Depression

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 25, 2009

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This one certainly moves... moving in a way of clarity and simplicity... yet going in the story seemed to underscore the title.

The daddy was a number runner alright, and there were blips here and there accounting the fact, except here's what stands out most. Rats, roaches, gangs, crooked cops, prostitution, knuckle fights, riots, and an old pervert, most unrelated to daddy running numbers, but very much in line with Harlem's great depression... and when I really thought about it... depression period. Save for old 30's, maybe 40's terms and expressions, this neighborhood theme transcends comfortably into today's depressed neighborhoods all around the globe.

Summing up my experience--omitting any spoilers--I did retain a pivotal heartwarming message that I can only phrase in the form of a question. What Does It Mean to be a Man? That was daddy's question... and his son's question... and apparently everyone caught up in the struggles' question.

For this dominant theme alone, Daddy Was A Number Runner is a marvelous compelling read!

4 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

1st renassance

Brownstone Blues

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 22, 2021

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Daddy was a Number Runner (1970) is the debut novel of Louise Meriwether and is a first-person coming of age narrative. Set in the 1930s, it depicts the lives of the Coffin family through the eyes of 12-year-old Francie. Much of the novel portrays her loving family and particularly her positive relationship with her father, a number runner (i.e. someone who works for an illegal gambling scheme).
When the family hits the jackpot, winning $300, it looks as though their lives have turned the corner. However, after two weeks of catching up on bill payments, eating well, and buying replacement clothes, they are worse off than before. The financial hardship that they then experience finally contributes to daddy’s feelings of emasculation as he sees his family obliged to go on relief and mum take on work outside the home, rendering their domestic lives unstructured. But such has been his positive effect on Francine that when daddy becomes estranged from the family, she goes looking for him at least once a week ‘cause sometimes I got hungry for the sight of him’ (p.162).
Although Francine is a somewhat innocent adolescent (not totally informed about the facts of life in the way that her peers seem to be), her experiences are punctuated by the sexual depravity of the ghetto. Here, grocery store owners agree to put items on tick in exchange for a peak or a stroke, some of her male peers are sexually active and predatory, and their siblings are either prostitutes or pimps. Yet, despite this dysfunctionality, there is a sense of community, as new homeless migrants from the south are accommodated as well as possible, and family and neighbours support each other financially and nutritionally.
Daddy was a Number Runner is an accessible book to read and is an often-neglected modern classic of African American literature. It has influenced the writings of Paule Marshall amongst other authors.

HappyBookWorm

Must have!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 28, 2015

Verified Purchase

A classic I discovered at thirteen also. Louise Meriwether is a wonderfully talented writer and I urge you all to read this book. I have read it so many times my copy actually fell apart!
So I wanted to replace my copy and bought from RavenstoneBooks. Described as Used-Like New it was in excellent condition, I'd describe as new.

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