{"product_id":"daddy-was-a-number-runner-contemporary-classics-by-women","title":"Daddy Was a Number Runner (Contemporary Classics by Women)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis 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).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDepression-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.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFirst 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.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Feminist Press at CUNY","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43911400849442,"sku":"9781558614420","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0711\/3841\/0530\/files\/9781558614420.jpg?v=1750725009","url":"https:\/\/anovelideabookshop.org\/products\/daddy-was-a-number-runner-contemporary-classics-by-women","provider":"A Novel Idea Bookshop ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}