What do you love most about your memoir?
I love most that Love, Rita captures who my sister was as a woman who battled a chronic illness, while also revealing her complexity and fullness; I love that this memoir is a microcosm of shared life experiences for so many Black women and men. I love that Love, Rita includes 22 letters that Rita wrote to me throughout the years, which stitch together the story of us as sisters. I especially love that the book includes family photos. Most of all, I love that writing this memoir allowed me to be in an active relationship again with my sister, as a way to better understand who she was to me, and who I am without her.
What kind of reader do you think will most appreciate or enjoy your book?
I hope that all types of readers will find their way to this book and enjoy it. That said, I do feel that readers who may most enjoy Love, Rita are those who like reading stories about individual people defined and shaped by familial dynamics, but also by living in a particular time and place, i.e., personal narratives anchored by social history and cultural context. In addition, anyone who has battled a chronic illness or loved someone who has, anyone who has some experience with inherited and lived trauma will, I hope, find value in this book. Finally, because the book explores multiple losses, anyone who has lost a loved one and suffered through grief and mourning will hopefully appreciate my book’s exploration of that experience.
At what point did you know this story was a book?
On what would’ve been my sister’s 65th birthday, I wrote a letter to her, and in it I explored some of the milestones in her life. That’s when I realized she’d lived through so many cultural touchstones; her life’s events were resonant beyond their individual impact on her, but also more broadly as markers of Black life from the mid-to-late 20th century. That’s when I committed to writing this memoir, with two goals in mind: To honor my sister, and to highlight what America’s structural racism looks like through the lens of a personal, lived experience.
What was the hardest memory to get on the page?
The hardest memory to capture on the page was the one that follows my sister’s final months of life, after she loses her battle with lupus: the day she dies.
Was there anything that surprised you as you wrote?
As I wrote, I was surprised by how vivid and alive my sister felt to me again. I was surprised—even though it had been my goal—by how writing this story conjured her presence, made me feel close to her again, despite how long ago she died.
How do you feel now that you’ve put this story to the page?
I’m greatly relieved to have gotten this story—which for so long felt too hard to write, yet consumed my consciousness—out of me; I feel liberated from this family narrative and the parts that saddened me, yet surprisingly comforted by the parts that lifted my heart. Now that it lives on the page, I feel proud of myself for facing my fears and writing the hard parts. Having done so is a major personal and creative triumph.
As I wrote, I was surprised by how vivid and alive my sister felt to me again.
How have you changed since you started writing it?
When I began writing, I still held some guilt over not being able to save my sister. That guilt has subsided now that I’ve written the book, because I’ve gained invaluable understanding and perspective. I’ve now honored her life. Not only has research and combing through personal archives made that possible, so has mining my memory and speaking to many people who knew and loved her. Because I understand more fully what Rita meant to me, and how she influenced who I’ve become, I can honor those parts of her that live in me. That’s new.
What is the most interesting thing you had to research in order to write this book?
Because my sister attended Fisk University, I researched that particular historically Black college, which allowed me to learn about the institution’s fascinating history. I learned that not only did Nikki Giovanni and W.E.B. Du Bois graduate from Fisk, but the university has played a crucial role in Black and American history in myriad ways. Learning about Fisk’s story opened up a new, rich portal of Black culture for me.
Can you describe your book as an item on a menu?
Love, Rita is a delicious chicken shawarma with creamy garlic sauce. Not only was this one of my sister’s favorite meals at her favorite Middle Eastern restaurant in the Detroit area, La Shish, but it captures that combination of familiarity and comfort mixed with spiciness that embodied Rita’s personality. People love it. People loved her.
Photo of Bridgett M. Davis by Nina Subin.
