The Yellow House

The Yellow House

New Orleans native Sarah M. Broom, who garnered the 2019 US National Book Award for this memoir, paints a loving portrait of the family, house and city of her birth. Hurricane Katrina – which Broom calls the “Water” – tore all three apart in 2005.

In a time of increased toxic tribalism in the United States, Broom presents an extraordinary, moving chronicle of the most nourishing kind of tribe – a family linked by blood and mutually assumed responsibility. In her consistently matter-of-fact voice, Broom depicts how working-class and poor Black Americans don’t even think of asking the government or civic structures for help; they know none is forthcoming. Instead, she remembers, the people in her family looked after one another. Or, as she wrenchingly relates, sometimes failed to do so.