Sarah M. Broom: The Yellow House

Broom’s riveting memoir recounts the sweeping details of her big family, in which she is the last of the twelve children. Broom traces all the way back to her grandmother’s upbringing to her mother’s incredible love stories and the house she built in East New Orleans to her siblings accounts of growing up in the house until hurricane Katrina destroyed it. Broom’s personal report, in which she interviewed her brothers who got stuck on the roof when the water kept rising, of Katrina was devastating. The injustices of the aftermath were even more troubling. By combining the New Orlean’s language with her extraordinary prose, Broom has written a stunning literary work of nonfiction. It was an engaging and enlightening read.