DETROIT — Detroit-born author Bridgett M. Davis' latest book "Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy" is a memoir that goes beyond the dynamic relationship between two siblings and explores generational trauma and looks at the effect societal stressors have on the health of Black Americans.

In "Love, Rita," Davis writes about her older sister Rita's path from their middle-class childhood upbringing in Detroit in the 1970s to her attending Fisk University in Nashville and becoming a special education teacher before her life was cut short by lupus at age 45.

The deeply personal story is set in much of the same time and place as Davis' applauded 2019 book, "The World According to Fannie Davis," an engaging memoir about her and Rita's mother who ran a neighborhood numbers game in Detroit.

Davis paints a page-turning picture of her relationship with Rita — complex, not always perfect, but full of admiration and respect — and also highlights how repeated exposure to racism and social and economic disadvantages can exacerbate health problems in a theory called "weathering."

Although Davis' sister Rita died in 2000, it was too painful for her to delve into her life and her story for many years, she said. It took a little more time, courage and experience for her to get there.

"I always wanted to write about her ... and I remember a journal entry very early on after losing her that said I want to write about Rita someday. But then I didn't because it's painful, and I also understood that what I could eventually do is write about my mom," said Davis, whose mother has also passed. "Because that was a mission that was telling the world about this underground industry that had fueled our middle class lives and my mom was the hero of that story."

So she put her energies into the Fannie Davis book, the story of her mother's underground lottery business, which is currently being made into a movie. Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment and Searchlight Pictures have teamed up to produce the film, which is still in the screenwriting process.

"After I saw that the world embraced my story about my mom, and it felt empowering. It seemed to help so many people. Even the passages about losing her seemed to help people, they would comment about it. It gave me courage," said Davis, who will be in Detroit later this month to celebrate the new book.

In addition to being ready to write about her older sister's life and death, Davis had also read and researched the concept of "weathering." The National Library of Medicine explains the concept could partially explain racial disparities in a wide range of health conditions, and that chronic exposure to social and economic disadvantage leads to accelerated decline in physical health.

"When I first learned about it, I immediately understood Rita's life better," said Davis. "I had never put it in that context. It just seemed as though she was unfortunate enough to have lupus, struggle with it and then lost her battle with it."

Once Davis learned about the notion of weathering, she felt her book had a greater purpose than even the important mission of sharing Rita's story because it could help shine a light on this phenomenon.

"It was really about the wear and tear on Black bodies as we push against all this societal pressure and bias and resistance and racism that weathers, literally, your body," she said. "I thought, oh wait, this didn't have to go this way. There were lots of external factors that exasperated her condition. And that felt to me, okay, I have a new mission."

Davis, who studied journalism at Spelman College and Columbia University, is a mission-based writer. She's also written two novels and a feature film titled "Naked Acts," which was screened widely when it was released in the late 1990s and has recently been made available again via streaming.

As for "Love, Rita," Davis say she hopes it helps readers see what can be overcome in spite of these challenges.

"I hope people understand that every life is lived within context and that society is playing a part in these disproportioned numbers of Black folks living truncated lives. It isn't just one of those things," she said. "Look at the resistance. Look at what people like my sister accomplished. In my mind, she is the prototype for a Black woman who came of age in the second half of the 20th century. She's really typical and ordinary in that way in her extraordinary efforts to just live a full life. I don't know that people have seen that that often."

"I think she would have been proud that I captured her in her fullness," said Davis.

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