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Louise Meriwether, novelist who conjured 1930s Harlem, dies at 100
Louise Meriwether, novelist who conjured 1930s Harlem, dies at 100
Her acclaimed debut, ‘Daddy Was a Number Runner,’ was part of a flowering of Black female writing in the 1970s
By Harrison Smith
October 13, 2023 at 2:06 p.m. EDT
The novelist Louise Meriwether at a celebration of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize in 2017. The honor was created a year earlier by the Feminist Press and TAYO Literary Magazine for debut works by female or nonbinary authors of color. (Feminist Press)
Louise Meriwether, an author and activist who helped propel a renaissance of Black female writing in the 1970s with her searing novel “Daddy Was a Number Runner,” a coming-of-age story set in Depression-era Harlem, died Oct. 10 at a rehabilitation and nursing center in Manhattan. She was 100.
Her death was confirmed by the filmmaker Cheryl Hill, who cared for her in recent years and said that Ms. Meriwether’s health had declined after she contracted covid-19 in 2020.
A stylish, evocative writer with an ear for dialogue, Ms. Meriwether was 46 when she published her debut novel, “Daddy Was a Number Runner” (1970). The book recounted a year in the life of 12-year-old Francie Coffin, who grows up in a Harlem streetscape where women seem consigned to domestic work or prostitution, and where hustlers, gangsters and child molesters stalk the avenues. Its story was inspired by Ms. Meriwether’s own childhood in the 1930s, when she helped her father run numbers — carrying money and betting slips as part of an illegal gambling racket — after he struggled to find work as a janitor.
Much of the novel was unsparingly bleak. One of Francie’s brothers joins a gang and is sent to jail; the other drops out of school and gets a job with an undertaker, convinced that racism will prevent him from ever building a career as a chemist. Her father chooses to leave the family.
{snip}
(Feminist Press)
By Harrison Smith
Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago. Twitter https://twitter.com/harrisondsmith
Her acclaimed debut, ‘Daddy Was a Number Runner,’ was part of a flowering of Black female writing in the 1970s
By Harrison Smith
October 13, 2023 at 2:06 p.m. EDT
The novelist Louise Meriwether at a celebration of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize in 2017. The honor was created a year earlier by the Feminist Press and TAYO Literary Magazine for debut works by female or nonbinary authors of color. (Feminist Press)
Louise Meriwether, an author and activist who helped propel a renaissance of Black female writing in the 1970s with her searing novel “Daddy Was a Number Runner,” a coming-of-age story set in Depression-era Harlem, died Oct. 10 at a rehabilitation and nursing center in Manhattan. She was 100.
Her death was confirmed by the filmmaker Cheryl Hill, who cared for her in recent years and said that Ms. Meriwether’s health had declined after she contracted covid-19 in 2020.
A stylish, evocative writer with an ear for dialogue, Ms. Meriwether was 46 when she published her debut novel, “Daddy Was a Number Runner” (1970). The book recounted a year in the life of 12-year-old Francie Coffin, who grows up in a Harlem streetscape where women seem consigned to domestic work or prostitution, and where hustlers, gangsters and child molesters stalk the avenues. Its story was inspired by Ms. Meriwether’s own childhood in the 1930s, when she helped her father run numbers — carrying money and betting slips as part of an illegal gambling racket — after he struggled to find work as a janitor.
Much of the novel was unsparingly bleak. One of Francie’s brothers joins a gang and is sent to jail; the other drops out of school and gets a job with an undertaker, convinced that racism will prevent him from ever building a career as a chemist. Her father chooses to leave the family.
{snip}
(Feminist Press)
By Harrison Smith
Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago. Twitter https://twitter.com/harrisondsmith
