The yellow house, by Sarah M. Broom

Winner of the National Book Award for memoir. It was more than a little strange to be reading this book, in which Hurricane Katrina’s effect on the poorest sections of New Orleans is chronicled, as Hurricane Laura was bearing down on the area (which it thankfully missed, although with serious damage done elsewhere). It was even odder that some of Sarah’s relatives relocated to Vacaville CA after the storm where, at the same time Laura was hitting Louisiana, major wildfires were raging. Hopefully, the family didn’t suffer losses there too! Ms Broom, a successful writer for various well-known periodicals, such as O, even before this was published, is forty and the youngest of 13 children raised by her mother, Ivory Mae Broom. In her memoir, she focuses on all the people in her life who lived in or near the “yellow house,” an increasingly ramshackle structure even before the storms damaged it (it also suffered an earlier flood from Rita). It is a story of the complicated multi-generational history of her extended family, of where one considers “home,” and who we choose to care for. Although the house no longer stands, it symbolizes so much to its former inhabitants. It is also an affecting history of New Orleans seen through the eyes of those who don’t live in the famous neighborhoods, who struggle to be heard, and who continue love and live in New Orleans despite it all. 376 pp.