Bridgette M. Davis’ 2019 memoir, The World According to Fannie Davis, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and a BuzzFeed, Parade, and Kirkus Best Book of 2019. She is the writer-director of the award-winning film, “Naked Acts,” rediscovered and re-released in 2024 to critical acclaim. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. The author of two novels, she just published a new memoir, Love, Rita, an American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy. Just out from HarperCollins. Listen in as she and I discuss the role of advocacy in memoir, and so much more.
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Bridgett: Thank you. It’s great to be here.
Marion: Well, it’s lovely to have you here. You are a prolific writer of novels, memoirs, essays, and book reviews. And in one book review in the New York Times in 2021, you opened the piece with a quote from Toni Morrison, defining her fictional worlds as a quest to access the interior lives of her ancestors. And she wrote, quote, “it’s a kind of literary archeology on the basis of some information and a little bit of guesswork, you journey to a site to see what remains were left behind and to reconstruct the world that these remains imply.” It’s such a great quote in a terrific way.
Bridgett: I love it. I know, don’t you?
Marion: I love it. I think it’s a tattoo, but it’s a little big, but I just love it. It’s a terrific way to set up a book review. But it also made me wonder about you and your outlook on memoir, because memoir writers wrestle with their assignments in various ways, but always with what remains and what to do with it. So let’s start there with your assignment as you return to memoir. How did you define or how do you define the memoir writer’s assignment?
Bridgett: Thank you for that question. I really believe that it’s important to write the book that what remains provides for you to tell.
So, in other words, it’s not about what you don’t have or didn’t get or is now lost. There’s a book based on what you do have. And it feels to me as though that’s the one that you were meant to write.
For example, I had this beautiful book about my mom, and yet her two best friends died before I could interview them. And there was a part of me that thought, how can I tell this story without my mom’s friends’ voices in it?
Well, I managed to. I clearly managed to. It became a book that was based on what I had and the absences, as well. That was the book.
Marion: Such a good point. In journalism, we say, “go with what you got.” And it is a dictum I use on myself all the time. Stop focusing on the holes and start focusing on what you do have.
And in that beautiful book, The World According to Fannie Davis, you explore the institutionalized racism in America that puts making a life in America out of reach for so many. And you do so by introducing us to the unforgettable Fannie Davis, your mother, who was a bookie and a banker who collected bets and paid off wins for the underground lottery business that we otherwise know as “running numbers.”
You write that your mother embodied a phrase that is ubiquitous in Black life, which is, quote, “making a way out of no way.” Talk to me from a memoir writer’s moment of intuition when you triangulated what your mother did for a living, the sustained racism of America, and that expression of “making a way out of no way” to create a story for us to read.
Bridgett: Yeah. You know, it seemed as though I was writing about my mom so that I could share with everyone this incredible profession that she had, right? Because that is a compelling story. I knew it.
I had grown up around it and I understood that many people didn’t know what it was. But the truth is, if I’m being really truthful, I was writing this story for a different reason.
I was writing this story about my mom so you could learn why she had to resort to running numbers.
No one grows up and thinks – well, I shouldn’t say no one, but I’ll just talk about my own mother. It wasn’t a dream or a goal of hers when she migrated north to get away from all of the effects of Jim Crow and try to give her family a better life and moved away from Nashville to this new northern, also racist city. It wasn’t her goal to become a bookie or a banker in the numbers. She was desperate to try to literally, as you just said, make a way out of no way.
And I thought it’s important that people understand that context, even as they can applaud her for what she was able to do in the middle-class life she gave us, all incredible. But let’s not forget why.
Marion: It makes the point so beautifully because of course, Bingo in the Catholic church basements, horse racing, there’s legal gambling going on all over the place. But you make this point so strongly about in the Black community, this quote, I want to say, quote unquote, “illegal industry.” But what they’re such beautiful examples of what people did with the money they earned, including what she did with the money she earned, how she did, as you just said, created this middle-class life for you. I was just fascinated.
Some other writer might turn away from a parent, from writing about a parent with a quote, “illegal activity.” But you found a way to develop these themes of racism, utilizing that. And it was very, very effective.
Did you hesitate at any point to talk about her? Or did you see that the numbers running as the vehicle right from the start?
Bridgett: I avoided writing about my mom for decades. I, as you noted in my bio, wrote two novels first. I was working my way up to, first of all, having the craft and skill to tell this story because I knew I needed to be good at what I did to tell the story the way it deserved to be told.
So I waited until I was ready. And also, there was a part of me that didn’t feel compelled to reveal the secret because I had kept it my whole life. It was not a burden to keep. I was not ashamed of her. It wasn’t a heavy load.
And so, there were many years when I asked myself, why would you tell? Why would you tell your mom’s secret? But then the oddest thing started to occur. As I got older, I started asking myself, “Well, if you don’t tell, aren’t you acting like you’re ashamed?”
Marion: I love that. These are the questions that we have to answer as writers. These are the nudges. These are the spiritual, or the divine or the whatever it is. But that’s so generous of you to share that because that kind of conundrum would provoke you to write.
And the people listening in are writers, and they want to know how to do what you do. And one of the many things I’ve noticed about your work is how well you provide shorter pieces around the publications of your books. On your website, I counted 11 essays or op-eds surrounding the publication of The World According to Fannie Davis. You are every publisher’s dream to have a writer willing to visit and revisit her territory on various platforms to publicize a book.
But it’s also every writer’s nightmare. And so, I can hear the jaws dropping of the writers listening. Eleven pieces? She wrote 11 pieces on either side of her pub date? Yeah, she did.
Obviously, these pieces cannot all be about the same thing, right? Despite having your mother in the piece. So talk to me about finding many topics within the topic of your mother to be so prolific.
Bridgett: Well, you know, I did start out as a journalist. I was a newspaper reporter. I went to graduate school at Columbia’s, you know, journalism school.
My training is in shorter form, nonfiction. And I think of even my memoirs as a kind of compilation. I want each chapter to be a standalone, even as I want it to be part of this larger connective narrative, connected narrative, right?
And so I love writing essays because, first of all, a 300-page book has a lot of different stories in it.
Marion: Yes.
Bridgett: And essays allow me to pull out one aspect and zero in on it and write about that in a way I couldn’t in the book.
Marion: It’s such a great lesson. And I’m going to put links in to your website so everyone can go and look at this list of publications and be inspired by it.
As I said, we’ve got writers as listeners, but I also work with memoir writers all day in my business. And I tell them all the time that if they write from one area of their expertise at a time, they can have a writing life, right? Countless essays, op-eds, even many book-length memoir. And here you are, the living proof of this.
In your first memoir, that area of expertise seems clearly defined in that phrase about making a way out of no way and how you saw it, lived it, inherited it, and write about it. In your wonderful new memoir, Love, Rita, there is still the topic of bias in America, but now it is the implicit medical bias leading to poor outcome for Black Americans.
Specifically, you take on the concept of what is known as weathering, defined as “how repeated exposure to racism and social and economic disadvantages can exacerbate health problems.”
If you would, please talk to us about the role of advocacy in memoir and what decisions and difficulties it presents.
Bridgett: Well, I think that I know no other way to write a memoir. People have teased me, you know, when they saw that Love, Rita was coming out, they’re like “A second memoir?” And I said, you know, I write memoirs so that I can reveal other people’s lives. And yes, I write about myself where it intersects with those other people’s lives.
But this is really, for me, always about a larger goal, a larger mission. And I don’t know any other way but to provide cultural context around the story of anyone’s life. And in order to do that, when I’m writing about Black life, I have to write about this particular culture that we’re living in that is so steeped in systemic racism, that it’s, in some ways, either a given or invisible.
And my role, as I’m recreating someone’s life on the page, is to make those aspects of Black life visible.
Marion: Yes, it is your role. And it’s a role that you take on beautifully.
Was there any discomfort for you around taking on this role? Have, I mean, people saying, “Oh, another memoir.” But did you get any other kinds of pushback from anyone about your role as an advocate, the way you see memoir being inseparable from that idea?
Bridgett: I have not gotten pushback. And I’m not sure whether that’s because The World According to Fannie Davis came first, and so now I had a somewhat proven track record. And so, I was allowed, but trusted, to write the second book.
But I will say I do work hard, even in the, I’m talking, you know, this is for writers, even in the proposal stage. I’m very diligent about showing the larger cultural importance of the story I’m attempting to tell, even as it is very much a personal, specific story, too. And I think that might be helpful. Maybe that is one way that I’ve been able to write the kinds of stories I want to write.
Marion: Yes. I think that that’s essential in the proposal stage to stake out your territory, tell them who you are, write the story that you were born to write, and to allow for that understanding in that financial transaction that is publishing that this is what I’m doing. Here’s where I’m going. Yeah, that’s a very good point.
And as Love, Rita turns for home, you write of how hard it is to advocate from afar for a loved one when they are in the hospital. You write, quote, “And especially if your loved one is a Black woman.” In the America of 2025, this book feels like an enormous piece of, yet again, we’re talking about advocacy. So let’s talk a bit more about advocacy. Since when writing about racism in America, there is no one single thing to point to, one single problem to solve, but myriad pointillistic aspects, and yet you cannot take on all of them at once.
So did you formulate an argument for this book and decide what goes in and stays out? What manner of discernment did you use to choose your examples?
Bridgett: Let me share with you what I hope is really helpful to others because it was a light bulb moment for me.
I started with this question, “Why Rita?”
Well, one out of every 250 Black women has Lupus. That’s a staggering number. Yes. But also, why was she the one? And so, I decided, let me just move through the details of her life, a young woman who lived through the second half of the 20th century, and let me just see what are the circumstances around the major events in her life?
Because I think if I use her as an example, I will inevitably be illuminating the incredible sort of challenges that Black people face in this country. And it worked.
And I say it was a light bulb moment because it was like I had now something that I could use to track all of these different, various, and interconnected, and sometimes not even connected issues that face Black people in this country, all tied back to some kind of racist foundation.
Okay, what do I mean by that?
For instance, I’m telling Rita’s story, and I note that she started her period at age nine. Well, a little research reveals to me that Black girls disproportionately start their periods earlier.
You may ask, why?
Well, we don’t have an exact reason, but if we stop and look at how girls are treated in elementary school, Black girls are much more harshly punished. Assumptions are made about them. Is there something physiologically that then prompts premature puberty?
It’s a question worth asking that, for me, wasn’t, I felt these were not the conversations that were being had about, you know, why all these statistics keep showing disproportion all the time. You know, you just get numb by them.
Oh, you know, Black men die at a higher rate and earlier than white men. You’ve heard them all. And for Black women, there’s just as many of these kinds of unbelievable statistics. So, why? Not what should we do about it, that’s important. But for me, the question is why? We’re all human beings. We’re all in the same country, in the same society, but we have very different racialized histories and experiences, daily experiences. It has to be taking its toll.
Marion: This is a wonderful delivery system, the story of your sister who dies from complications from Lupus at 44, just way too early, of course. The ability to tell that story about weathering, to ask those questions about puberty, to utilize this story is undeniable.
The attraction must have been extraordinary. And attraction isn’t quite the right word. I guess the pull is really the word I’m looking for.
But you still waited 20 years beyond the death of your sister to write this book. So, let’s talk about that time, the thinking, the considering. I think people worry that things slip or change or leave. I don’t think so. I think things take the time they take to be written. And in that time, you wrote your first memoir. So, did one inform the other? Were you making notes all the time? Were you what?
Bridgett: Writing the memoir about my mother gave me courage.
Marion: Ah.
Bridgett: That’s what that did.
Marion: Yeah, lovely.
Bridgett: And I needed that courage. Yeah, writing begets writing.
Marion: And writing begets courage, doesn’t it?
Bridgett: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Marion: Absolutely. As you see one word become a sentence, and a sentence become a paragraph, and a paragraph become a scene, and then you’re able to have the courage.
Bridgett: Yes.
Marion: And you took a lot of notes. So, let’s talk about taking notes. You write in the book about the little notebook in which you kept notes. The little notebook in which you kept notes on your sister’s care. Yes. And she was your older sister. And in the book, you show us the natural process of growing together, the struggles, and then the bond that was built.
But the way you built the argument for the bias is really what I noticed. Small quote by small quote from those in the medical communities. An action compounded by another action. And I kept thinking about that notebook that you write about.
As writers, we’re always in the habit of taking notes. I’ve told the story many times about once writing something that I did not want to forget on the inside hem of a skirt I was wearing when I had forgotten the notebook, but I had a pen.
So, chicken and egg this for those listening. Did you write down much of what you saw and heard and later looking through those notes, find a story of implicit medical bias? Or did you intend for the book to cover that and take notes on that? If you ever got around to writing the book, did you always intend to write about this? Or were you simply doing what writers do, jotting it all down in a notebook? Let’s just really talk about the notebook for a few minutes.
Bridgett: Oh, I was simply trying to keep track of everything that was happening. That was really my goal when I wrote in that notebook, just trying to navigate.
Imagine this idea of dropping into your older sister’s life when she can’t assist you in sort of trying to work out everything going on. She wasn’t in a position to tell me what the doctors had been saying or give me a quick, you know, summary of what had happened or how she was feeling.
I was figuring it out for myself. It was overwhelming. And so, the notebook was my tracking. That’s maybe because I’m a writer, but also, honestly, I just was trying to make sure I didn’t miss anything. What I did do was save it. And I can’t tell you that I was thinking consciously, save this because one day you’ll write about Rita, but I did save it, didn’t I?
Marion: Yes, you did. And did you pull it out in front of the doctors? When I tell people to keep a notebook, I have a notebook tied to the stick shift of my car. I have a notebook next to the bed. I have one in the kitchen. I have one in the bathroom. I have them everywhere.
I have an index card in the back pocket of my jeans. I have a notebook, except for that one time when I had to write on the inside of my skirt. Memorable, but stupid.
But did you, I have found, I wrote a first book that chronicled my mother’s Alzheimer’s disease. When I pulled out that notebook sometimes, people got quiet. I got one-word answers sometimes. And other people got loquacious. Other people liked the idea that they might get quoted, but everybody had a reaction to seeing the notebook.
So, sometimes we learn to try to hear what’s being said and then, you know, slip into the bathroom and write things down. Talk to me about the response of others to it, if they saw it, and when and how you utilized it.
Bridgett: In my case, it was a private experience. I used it to try to capture and remember what was being told to me, especially by these doctors. You know how doctors can speak sometimes.
Marion: Oh, yeah.
Bridgett: And my process involves writing. That’s how I think. That’s how I retain information. That’s how I figure out what I want to ask. And so, literally, as the doctor would be speaking to me, thank goodness, all that note taking from being a reporter, I would be scribbling down what the doctor said.
So, I could then say, “Wait, did you mean this? And what does that mean? And can you explain what you expect the, you know, prognosis to be based on X?”
So, while you were probably recording things to get down what someone was saying to you in their presence, I was really using this as my private place where I could make sense of it, so I could ask the right questions.
Marion: Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing, one way or the other. And it can be used so many ways. I was taught a trick years ago. My husband is actually a Columbia journalism graduate and a reporter and editor. And he taught me that when you’re writing down the facts, you keep the notebook vertical. But when you’re trying to capture the landscape of a room, of the situation, turn it horizontally and pretend it’s a sketchbook. And the words that you write down will really percolate back to you, what you saw and heard and smelled. And so, that notebook is my…
Bridgett: That’s fantastic.
Marion: Isn’t that fabulous? Try it.
Bridgett: I love that.
Marion: Yeah, it makes your brain go into this other place. So, you get seen and then you get facts. And it’s for those of us who grew up in journalism at a particular time, when those reporters’ notebooks, they have a particular shape and they fit right in the hand. But I love, I just always love talking to people about the note taking they do in the notebooks.
When you went back and read through it or in the most recent reading, did you find yourself surprised at all by some of the things that you located there?
Bridgett: I was stunned. Because, you know, my sister died in 2000. I had the wherewithal when I packed up her apartment to put all these things, letters, bills, you know, documents, I just shoved them, there’s no other word for it, I shoved them into this gigantic bag, and I dropped that into a box. And I did not touch it for nearly 20 years.
Marion: Oh, yeah.
Bridgett: And so, I was amazed at what was there because I will say this, we do forget. And I would have written this book anyway, but thank goodness I had all of these documents that helped me.
They were validation, they were proof, they were reminders of what had happened, what I had done, what, you know, I was feeling, what she was going through. It was, okay, I’m being honest. I was afraid to write this book because I didn’t want to relive the trauma of her decline and my losing her and yes, feeling as though I wasn’t there for her.
So, I avoided it because it was a hard thing to admit to myself. When I finally decided to write the book, lo and behold, that’s what saved me because all of those notes revealed that I had been doing so much.
Marion: Oh, I love that story. And that’s just it, that you can look back and say, I was there, I did show up.
Bridgett: I was there.
Marion: I came out of it feeling I didn’t do enough because she died, but that’s not actually true. And that begs the question, and it’s a question I ask every time I have on a memoir writer. And so I’m going to ask it of you. I always ask them this, what are we asking a memoir writer to do when we ask her to go back into trauma? Are we asking her to relive it, reanimate it, or stand coolly back from it and report on it from here?
Bridgett: For me, it was all of that.
I had times when I was in tears as I was interviewing someone, as I was writing notes from the interview, as I was writing a scene. It was so hard.
And then I had moments as I went back to the work when I relished it, if that’s the right word. I relished it because I was in a relationship with her again.
That’s what writing does, too. It animates this person in your life in a way that they haven’t been before. Because you had no reason to really talk about that person or, you know, ask other people about her. Now she’s really present in my world again.
And that was really beautiful. Also, it was a way writing was helping me figure out what happened beyond this way I was blaming myself. It’s too easy to just blame yourself. It’s always more complicated.
Marion: That is a beautiful answer. You were in a relationship with her again. I’m so, so glad. Thank you so much, Brigette. That’s just a lovely conversation. I’m so grateful and so grateful for these books. Thank you so much for coming along today.
Bridgett: Thank you. This has been great.
Marion: You’re absolutely welcome.
The author is Brigette M. Davis. See more on her at Brigette Davis dot com. The book is Love, Rita, an American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss and Legacy just out from HarperCollins. Get it wherever books are sold. Read more on her at her Substack at BrigetteMDavis. I’m Marion Roach Smith. You’ve been listening to QWERTY. QWERTY is produced by Overit Studios in Albany, New York. Reach them at Overit Studios dot com. Our producer is Jacqueline Mignot. Our assistant is Lorna Bailey. Want more on the art and work of writing? Visit Marion Roach dot com, the home of The Memoir Project, where writers get their needs met through online classes in how to write memoir. And thanks for listening. Don’t forget to follow QWERTY wherever you get your podcasts and listen to it wherever you go. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. It helps others to find their way to their writing lives.
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