Love, Rita

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, Rita, who knew Bridgett before she knew herself. Just four years apart in age, as the two sisters grew into young adulthood, they left behind their childhood rivalry and became best friends. Rita was a vivacious woman who attended Fisk University at age 16, and went on to become a car test driver, an amateur belly dancer, an MBA, and later a popular special ed teacher; in doing so, she modeled for her younger sister Bridgett how to live boldly. And in the face of family tragedy, the two sisters leaned on one another to heal; their closeness grew, until Rita’s life was cut tragically short by lupus when she was just forty-four. This led Bridgett to ask the simple, heartbreaking question: Why Rita?

Love, Rita A brave and beautiful homage that 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 alongside 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. This poignant, deeply resonant portrait of an unforgettable woman and her impact on those she left behind is essential reading.