Research Catalog
The world according to Fannie Davis : my mother's life in the Detroit numbers
- Title
- The world according to Fannie Davis : my mother's life in the Detroit numbers / Bridgett M. Davis.
- Author
- Davis, Bridgett M.
- Publication
- New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2019.
- ©2019
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schomburg Center to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | Sc E 19-816 | Schomburg Center - Research & Reference |
Details
- Description
- xi, 308 pages : illustrations, portraits; 25 cm
- Summary
- An homage to the author's mother relates how she cleverly played Detroit's illegal lottery in the 1970s to support the family while creating a loving, joyful home and mothering her children to the highest standards.
- "In 1958, the very same year that an unknown songwriter named Berry Gordy borrowed $800 to found Motown Records, a pretty young mother from Nashville, Tennessee borrowed $100 from her brother to run a Numbers racket out of her tattered apartment on Delaware Street, in one of Detroit's worst neighborhoods. That woman was Fannie Davis, Bridgett M. Davis' mother. Part bookie, part banker, mother, wife, granddaughter of slaves, Fannie became more than a numbers runner: she was a kind of Ulysses, guiding both her husbands, five children and a grandson through the decimation of a once-proud city using her wit, style, guts, and even gun. She ran her numbers enterprise for 34 years, doing what it took to survive in a legitimate business that just happened to be illegal. She created a loving, joyful home, sent her children to the best schools, bought them the best clothes, mothered them to the highest standard, and when the tragedy of urban life struck, soldiered on with her stated belief: 'Dying is easy. Living takes guts.' A daughter's moving homage to an extraordinary parent, The World According to Fannie Davis is also the suspenseful, unforgettable story about the lengths to which a mother will go to 'make a way out of no way' to provide a prosperous life for her family--and how those sacrifices resonate over time. This original, timely, and deeply relatable portrait of one American family is essential reading."--Dust jacket.
- Subjects
- African American families
- African American women
- Black author
- Davis, Bridgett M > Family
- African American families > Michigan > Detroit > Biography
- African American women > Michigan > Detroit > Biography
- African American mothers > Michigan > Detroit > Biography
- Families
- African American mothers > Conduct of life
- Michigan > Detroit
- Biographies
- Detroit (Mich.) > Biography
- Biography
- Davis, Fannie, 1928-1992
- Mothers and daughters > Michigan > Detroit > Biography
- Genre/Form
- Biography.
- Biographies.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-307).
- Contents
- Hitsville, USA -- Hey, you never know -- Living takes guts.
- Call Number
- Sc E 19-816
- ISBN
- 0316558737
- 9780316558730
- LCCN
- 2018949177
- OCLC
- 1082363614
- Author
- Davis, Bridgett M., author.
- Title
- The world according to Fannie Davis : my mother's life in the Detroit numbers / Bridgett M. Davis.
- Publisher
- New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2019.
- Copyright Date
- ©2019
- Edition
- First United States edition.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-307).
- Local Note
- Schomburg copy with dust jacket.
- Local Subject
- Black author.
- Research Call Number
- Sc E 19-816