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Daddy Was a Number Runner - (Contemporary Classics by Women) by Louise Meriwether (Paperback)

Daddy Was a Number Runner - (Contemporary Classics by Women) by  Louise Meriwether (Paperback)
Store: Target
Last Price: 16.99 USD

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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>New edition of a tough, tender, bitter novel of a black girl struggling toward womanhood.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p><strong>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 (<em>Publishers Weekly</em>).</strong></p> <p>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."</p> <p>First published in 1970, <em>Daddy Was a Number Runner</em> is one of the seminal novels of the black experience in America.<em> The New York Times Book Review</em> proclaimed it "a most important novel."</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>The novel's greatest achievement lies in the strong sense of black life that it conveys: the vitality and force behind the despair. It celebrates the positive values of the black experience: the tenderness and love that often underlie the abrasive surface of relationships . . . the humor that has long been an important part of the black survival kit, and the heroism of ordinary folk. . . . A most important novel.<br>--<b>Paule Marshall, <i>The New York Times Book Review</i></b> <p/><i>Daddy Was a Number Runner</i> is not sugar-coated or show. It is truth lived in the vernacular--a Black girl's humor and empathy as she comes to understand Harlem's dreams and tragedies . . . from inside out. Louise Meriwether's voice is the Black feminist novelist's equivalent of the Blues. If you like modern classics by Naylor, Morrison, and Marshall, you will love this. . . . You will not be able to put it down or forget Francie, one of my all-time favorite characters.<br>--<b>Mary Libertin, <i>Belles Lettres</i></b> <p/>A tough, tender, bitter novel of a black girl struggling towards womanhood and survival.<br>--<i><b>Publishers Weekly</i></b><br>

Price History

Cheapest price in the interval: 16.99 on October 28, 2021

Most expensive price in the interval: 16.99 on November 6, 2021