Love, Rita: A Sister's Story

by Bridgett Davis

Overview

A searing tribute of sisterhood and family, love and profound 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 when she was only forty-four. 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063322080
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/11/2025
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

Bridgett (pronounced Bridge-JET) M. Davis is the author of the memoir, The World According To Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life In The Detroit Numbers, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, named a Best Book of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews, and featured as a clue on Jeopardy! She is author of two novels, Into the Go-Slow, and Shifting Through Neutral. Davis is also writer/director of the award-winning film Naked Acts, which was recently re-released to critical acclaim. She is Professor Emerita at Baruch College (CUNY) and the Graduate Center, where she taught creative, narrative and film writing. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the LA Times, among other publications. A graduate of Spelman College and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, she lives in Brooklyn with her family.