{Association Copy} Daddy Was a Number Runner

Meriwether, Louise; Foreword by James Baldwin

ISBN 10: 0131971034 / ISBN 13: 9780131971035

Published by Prentice Hall, New York, 1970

About this Item

SCARCE Association Copy, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR at front end page -"to Janet Saxe, Best of Luck Teaching Black Literature. Louise Meriwether April 1972". Louise Meriwether (born1923) is an African-American novelist, essayist, journalist and activist. Daddy Was a Number Runner is her critically acclaimed first book, and the first novel to come out of the Watts Writers' Workshop. Considered an underappreciated classic, it is her fictional account of a year in the life of a 12 year old girl growing up in Harlem during the Great Depression. "It risks offending people by taking up such issues such as police brutality, the unemployment situation, the desperation caused by the Depression and the different ways that the Blacks and whites are treated by society." (Ishmael Reed, The New York Times, June 18, 2021 "A Novel From '70 Is Still Resonant"). Janet (Cheatham) Saxe (Bell) is an African-American educator, author and independent scholar who in 1972 was an associate editor of "The Black Scholar". First Edition, First Printing, 1970. The book is Near Fine, crease to cloth at head of spine, in a Very Good dust jacket, wear and chips at edges and folds. Signed copies of any of Meriwether's books are rare in current commerce, and RBH shows no records of any signed copies of this title. Held in 574 libraries worldwide and currently in print, published by Virago Press under the summary "A compelling coming-of-age story set in 1930s Harlem, Daddy was a Number Runner is a seminal text in the African-American canon of literature." Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

Seller Inventory # 009143

Bibliographic Details

• Title: {Association Copy} Daddy Was a Number Runner
• Publisher: Prentice Hall, New York
• Publication Date: 1970
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0131971034
• ISBN 13: 9780131971035
• Binding: Cloth
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Signed: SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • Women Authors
  • Literature

About this title

Synopsis

Daddy Was a Number Runner by Meriwether, Louise. 8vo.

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