[1] Davis's novel, A Meaningful Life,[2] described by the Village Voice as a "scathing 1971 satire about a reverse-pioneer from Idaho who tries to redeem his banal existence through the renovation of an old slummed-up Brooklyn town house", was reissued in 2009, with an introduction by Jonathan Lethem.
[3] Lethem, a childhood friend of one of Davis's sons, praised the novel in an essay about Brooklyn authors, which resulted in New York Review Books Classics reprinting it after nearly 40 years.
A 2021 retrospective on Davis's novels published on Lit Hub described his writings as some of the earliest prototypes of modern-day gentrification narratives.
While living in Brooklyn, Davis participated in the brownstoning neighborhood association that named his South Brooklyn neighborhood of Boerum Hill, where he owned his own brownstone and rented out another nearby home to tenants.
He received the 1982 Gerald Loeb Award for Magazines for a two part story on the Hunt brothers' attempt to corner the world silver market.