MAY 2019 - AudioFile
Author Bridgett M. Davis narrates a love letter to her mother now that she is finally able to speak freely about her mother’s vocation: She was a numbers runner of more than 30 years in late-twentieth-century Detroit. The illicit work provided an upper-middle-class life for Davis’s family, and she eschews any indictment of her mother’s character, painting a glowing portrait of a generous and wise maternal figure in the community. At times, Davis sounds in awe of her mother’s deeds. At other times, she speaks more gingerly than a practiced narrator. But one can overlook this weakness because she weaves a great tale as she discusses riots and uprisings, the rise and dominance of Motown, and the emergence of a state lottery that now rivals her mother’s business. M.P.P. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Kaitlyn Greenidge
Davis's book is accessible, her language plain and direct. She has a cleareyed understanding of what it means to be poor and what kind of opportunities money creates…The World According to Fannie Davis would make a thrilling film. That's probably a testament to Davis's screenwriting background. But the arc of her mother's story may be too radical for most production companies: A black woman unapologetically engages in criminal activity and excels at it, making a better life for her family, no moralizing included. Thrumming beneath every sentence is an important question: "Who gets to be lucky?" Our culture loves stories of the lucky criminal, the Mafioso who gets away with it all, but that person is usually a white man. We need more stories like Fannie's—the triumph and good life of a lucky black woman in a deeply corrupt world.
The New York Times - Jennifer Szalai
The World According to Fannie Davis is a daughter's gesture of loving defiance, an act of reclamation, an absorbing portrait of her mother in full…Blending memoir and social history, she recounts her mother's extraordinary story alongside the larger context of Motor City's rise and fall.
Publishers Weekly
09/10/2018
Novelist Davis (Into the Go-Slow) honors her mother in this lively and heartfelt memoir of growing up in 1960s and ’70s Detroit. Before there was the Michigan Lottery, there was the numbers—an illegal lottery based on three-digit numbers. As Davis notes, it was a “lucrative shadow economy” in African-American communities. Fanny Davis was a feisty and sharply intelligent woman who moved her family from Nashville, Tenn., to Detroit in the early 1960s. There, she learned the numbers ropes and set out to run her own operation; in a short time she was able to provide generously for her family with an upscale house, a stocked refrigerator, shopping sprees at tony department stores, and even a trip to Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau resort. Alongside her mother’s story, Davis chronicles the hardships African-Americans suffered—predatory real estate schemes, discriminatory treatment in stores, and police abuse. Looking back as an adult, Davis realizes that her mother took risks in running her business, but recalls fondly a childhood during which she always felt secure. This charming tale of a strong and inspirational woman offers a tantalizing glimpse into the past, savoring the good without sugarcoating the bad. Agent: Anjali Singh, Ayesha Pande Literary. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
"Amoving portrait... Her writing feels rooted in the city and its changing landscape. Combining historical research with extensive interviews, The World According to Fannie Davis is an engrossing tribute to a vibrant, hardworking, unforgettable woman."—Booklist review
"[Davis] humanizes the hustle...This book will be a thought-provoking and inspirational delight for anyone searching for understanding in a world designed for only some to succeed."
—Shirley Ngozi Nwangwa, Wellesley Centers for Women
"A straight, no chaser view into the life of a Detroit numbers runner, as told in loving tribute by her devoted daughter."—Dawn M. Baskerville, The Grio
"Fannie Davis is many things - a history of Detroit in its heyday, a sociology of black migrant culture and a taxonomy of the underground lottery of Fannie's era. Davis interviewed family members and conducted research, excavating Fannie's life and times. But the book is not academic in tone. Davis' account of her mother's life and business is first and foremost a loving memoir."
—Erica Ciccarone, Nashville Scene
"This true and suspenseful story is an inspiring tale of an unconventional family."—Ashley Johnson, Parade
"Meet Fannie Davis. You won't be forgetting her anytime soon. In this memoir, Bridgett M. Davis recalls growing up in Detroit in the '60s and '70s with the kingpin of an illegal gambling operation for a mother."—Refinery 29
"Davis illuminates her mother's efforts to provide for the family despite the racial antagonism of the time. Her beautiful prose turns a tale of perseverance into a love story."—The Christian Science Monitor
"Scintillating."—Bill Morris, The Millions
"For readers who crave the richer, fuller history of America than is usually imparted by school books, Davis emerges as a valuable and needed voice. But mostly her book stands as a loving tribute to a remarkable woman, her mother."—Joan Gaylord, The Christian Science Monitor
MAY 2019 - AudioFile
Author Bridgett M. Davis narrates a love letter to her mother now that she is finally able to speak freely about her mother’s vocation: She was a numbers runner of more than 30 years in late-twentieth-century Detroit. The illicit work provided an upper-middle-class life for Davis’s family, and she eschews any indictment of her mother’s character, painting a glowing portrait of a generous and wise maternal figure in the community. At times, Davis sounds in awe of her mother’s deeds. At other times, she speaks more gingerly than a practiced narrator. But one can overlook this weakness because she weaves a great tale as she discusses riots and uprisings, the rise and dominance of Motown, and the emergence of a state lottery that now rivals her mother’s business. M.P.P. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2018-10-15
A remarkable story of a mother whose "ingenuity and talent and dogged pursuit of happiness made possible [her family's] beautiful home, brimming refrigerator and quality education."
Fannie Davis was an amazing woman. Sharp and unwilling to be hemmed in by the dual restrictions of race and gender, she did what it took to raise a family and to uplift a community. In 1960s and '70s Detroit, she ran the "Numbers," an illegal lottery that was nonetheless central to many urban and especially African-American communities, especially in the era before states realized that licit gambling could be a lucrative trade and even as they cracked down on the gambling they defined as illicit. Above all, Fannie Davis was a mother. In this admiring and highly compelling memoir, Bridgett Davis (Creative, Film and Narrative Writing/Baruch Coll.; Into the Go-Slow, 2014, etc.) tells the story of her beloved mother. The author knew that her mom's role in the Numbers had to be kept secret, but she also knew that it was not shameful. Placing her subject in the larger historical contexts of the African-American and urban experiences and the histories of Detroit and of underground entrepreneurship embodied in the Numbers, and framing it within numerous vital postwar trends, the author is especially insightful about how her mother embodied the emergence of a "blue collar, black-bourgeoisie." Although there was considerable risk in running the Numbers, it also provided a path forward to a comfortable lifestyle otherwise nearly unimaginable. While critics liked to paint the game as a path toward dissolution, for the author—and many others—it was anything but. This is not a story about capitalizing on degeneracy. It is one of hope and hustling in a world where to have the former almost demanded the latter.
This outstanding book is a tribute to one woman but will surely speak to the experiences of many.
