Daddy Was a Number Runner

Daddy Was a Number Runner

First edition
Author	Louise Meriwether
Language	English
Published	1970
Publisher	Prentice Hall
Publication place	United States
Followed by	The Freedom Ship of Robert Smalls

Daddy Was a Number Runner is the first novel by American writer Louise Meriwether. It was published by Prentice Hall, with a foreword by James Baldwin, in 1970, and is now considered a modern classic. ^[1] It depicts a poor black family in Harlem during the Great Depression in the first half of the 20th century, as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old African-American girl who has one brother who wants to be a chemist and another who is a gang member. ^{[2] [3]}

Reception

Paule Marshall said of the book:

[Its] greatest achievement lies in the sense of black life that it conveys: vitality and force behind the despair. It celebrates the positive values behind the black experience: the tenderness and love that often lie underneath the abrasive surfaces 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. ^[4]

It was an Essence Book Club Choice in December 2002.

References

1. Daddy Was a Number Runner at Goodreads.
2. Rita B. Dandridge, "From Economic Insecurity to Disintegration: A Study of Character in Louise Meriwether's Daddy was a Number Runner", Negro American Literature Forum , Vol. 9, No. 3 (Autumn 1975), pp. 82–85.
3. Erica Bauermeister, Jesse Larsen and Holly Smith (eds), 500 Great Books by Women, Penguin Books, 1994, pp. 123–24.
4. Louise Meriwether page, African American Literature Book Club.

Further reading

• Demirtürk, E. Lâle, "Writing the Urban Discourse into the Black Ghetto Imaginary: Louise Meriwether's 'Daddy Was a Number Runner'", Southern Literary Journal , Autumn 2006, Vol. 39 Issue 1, p. 71.