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A searing tribute of sisterhood and family, profound love and loss from the acclaimed author of The World According to Fannie Davis.
In Love, Rita, Bridgett M. Davis tells the story of her beloved older sister, a vivacious woman who in leaving home to attend Fisk University and then becoming a car test driver, an amateur belly dancer, an MBA, and later a popular special ed teacher, modeled for her younger sister Bridgett how to live boldly before her own life was tragically cut short by lupus. A brave and beautiful homage that both celebrates the special, complex bond of sisterhood yet also reveals what it is to live, and die, as a Black woman in America.
This moving memoir, full of joy and heartbreak, family history and American history, uses Rita’s life as a lens to examine the persistent effects of racism in the lives of Black women—and the men they love; it is essential reading for fans of Jesmyn Ward, Kiese Laymon, James McBride, Linda Villarosa, and Tressie McMillan Cottom.
About the Author
Bridgett M. Davis is the author of the memoir, Love, Rita, published by Harper Books in spring 2025.
Her first memoir, The World According To Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life In The Detroit Numbers, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a 2020 Michigan Notable Book, named a Best Book of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews, BuzzFeed, NBC News and Parade Magazine, and featured as a clue on the quiz show Jeopardy! The upcoming film adaptation will be produced by Plan B Entertainment and released by Searchlight Pictures.
She is author of two novels, Into the Go-Slow, named a Best Book of 2014 by The San Francisco Chronicle, and Shifting Through Neutral, shortlisted for the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award.
Davis is also writer/director of the 1998 award-winning feature film Naked Acts, newly restored by Milestone Films and released in 2024 to critical acclaim, and screening in theaters across the US as well as international venues.
Davis is Professor Emerita in the Department of Journalism and the Writing Professions at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, where she taught creative, narrative and film writing.
Her essays have appeared most recently in The New York Times, The Millions, the LA Times and The Washington Post, among other publications. A graduate of Spelman College and Columbia Journalism School, she lives in Brooklyn with her family. Visit her website at www.bridgettdavis.com.