5 Depressing Pieces of Literature About Dysfunctional Families to Get You Through the Holidays
Daddy Was a Number Runner Louise Meriweather
Probably you’ve already read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the Betty Smith classic about a young girl, Francie Nolan, growing up in poverty in Williamsburg at the turn-of-the-century. Despite Francie Nolan’s many struggles, it is, overall, a heart-warming tale that serves as a testament to the adage that anything is possible if one works hard and perseveres. So that’s nice. But who wants to read that on Christmas? Not me. I’ll take Louise Meriweather’s novel, featuring a young girl named Francie Coffin, who is growing up with her own set of struggles in Harlem during the 1930s. Whereas Francie Nolan has a healthy amount of naïveté, Francie Coffin cannot afford to be anything but wise beyond her years. Meriweather’s Francie also has a family that’s struggling to get by, but forces both beyond their control (crippling poverty, a racist society, the devastated economy) and those within it (an adulterous father, a criminal brother) conspire to keep the Coffin family down. Meriweather’s book is a must-read any time of year, and is the perfect antidote to all the saccharine bullshit that we get fed at this time of year in particular.