The Yellow House
A Memoir (2019 National Book Award Winner)
by Sarah M. Broom
Recommended by Barack Obama and Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
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Reading Profile
Should I read this?
Sarah M. Broom's memoir moves between family memory, personal detail, and local history, using a single shotgun house in New Orleans East as the hinge for larger forces. Its strongest material is close, sensory writing that makes household objects and neighborhood changes feel consequential. The book rewards readers who like layered, essayistic structure rather than linear plot. Frustrations come from frequent non-linear digressions and dense passages that slow momentum, which will annoy readers wanting tidy chronology or brisk pacing. Overall, it's immersive but patient reading.
Read this if...
- •a community organizer preparing testimony or a grant narrative around displacement who needs vivid, place-specific human scenes to make policy impacts tangible now; the memoir supplies texture you can borrow when you must move an audience at an upcoming meeting or application deadline
- •a memoirist drafting an extended-family narrative or a book proposal who is polishing voice and pacing; read this while revising your own long-form chapters to see how close sensory detail and archival asides can be threaded into one sustained voice
- •a high-school or college history teacher building a local-history unit on urban change and housing who needs a single, intimate narrative to anchor discussions that start this term; the book gives classroom-ready, image-rich passages to assign or quote when unpacking displacement and memory
Skip this if...
- •you'll likely put it down when the narrative keeps circling back through long family digressions and neighborhood minutiae without forward plot momentum; patience is required
- •annoying if you prefer brisk, event-driven storytelling or tidy chronology — the book favors texture and repetition over rapid plot movement
- •not for readers who want practical takeaways or hands-on exercises; this is memoir and reportage and lacks hands-on exercises
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSLLER A brilliant, haunting and unforgettable memoir from a stunning new talent about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a shotgun house in New Orleans East.In 1961, Sarah M. Broom's mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the thenpromising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It wa...
Before You Buy
Reading Specifications
Difficulty:hard
Audience Fit
- a community organizer preparing testimony or a grant narrative around displacement who needs vivid, place-specific human scenes to make policy impacts tangible now; the memoir supplies texture you can borrow when you must move an audience at an upcoming meeting or application deadline
- a memoirist drafting an extended-family narrative or a book proposal who is polishing voice and pacing; read this while revising your own long-form chapters to see how close sensory detail and archival asides can be threaded into one sustained voice
- a high-school or college history teacher building a local-history unit on urban change and housing who needs a single, intimate narrative to anchor discussions that start this term; the book gives classroom-ready, image-rich passages to assign or quote when unpacking displacement and memory
- you'll likely put it down when the narrative keeps circling back through long family digressions and neighborhood minutiae without forward plot momentum; patience is required
- annoying if you prefer brisk, event-driven storytelling or tidy chronology — the book favors texture and repetition over rapid plot movement
- not for readers who want practical takeaways or hands-on exercises; this is memoir and reportage and lacks hands-on exercises
Check formats, pricing, and availability options for Kindle, physical print, or audiobooks directly.
View available editions on AmazonKey themes
Why recommended
Recommended by 3 sources and appears in Memoir, Autobiographies, and Most Recommended Books.
Recommended by notable people
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
Recommendation Signals
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.
Barack Obama
44th President of the United States
“I loved @sarahmbroom's The Yellow House. I couldn't put the book down. And everyone should read @imaniperry _More Beautiful and More Terrible_!”
View sources (2) ▾80%
Appears In
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How recommendation signals are reviewed
Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.