Photo by Lucie Monk
Sarah M. Broom's National Book Award-winning memoir The Yellow House brilliantly integrates the author's family story with the vibrant art and culture, style, and social settings of the New Orleans East neighborhood in which she was raised. This spring, the East Baton Rouge Parish Library's annual parish-wide reading program series "One Book One Community" (OBOC) puts Broom's bestselling memoir at the center of a broad slate of pandemic-safe programming. The goal: to engender a community-wide literary conversation that will explore the themes, issues, and revelations that this extraordinarily powerful and relevant work of literature contains.
In The Yellow House, the beloved titular home is a constant structural work-in-progress; however, its outward appearance belies the depths of dysfunction within, reflecting the meticulous effort Broom’s mother puts into maintaining the family's outward appearances. Drawing on the book's themes, Dr. Sharbreon Plummer, an artist, researcher, and storyteller who serves as the Director of Advocacy and Artist Services at the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, will lead a discussion exploring the links between Black women’s creative legacy, textiles, and cultural memory on March 20.
Thanks to the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, residents will also be able to visit the acclaimed traveling mixed-media exhibit, Evicted. Inspired by Matthew Desmond's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Evicted is an exhibition developed by the National Building Museum that places visitors squarely within the precarious, devastating world of low-income renter eviction in modern America. The immersive exhibit, which runs from March through May at the Firehouse Gallery in downtown Baton Rouge, confronts the deep impact of housing instability on all aspects of family life.
The library will also be providing "grab & geaux" craft bags at various branch locations, including shotgun house art canvas miniatures, photo coasters, mini-family albums, and more. For event details, branch information, and more, visit ebrpl.com or readonebook.org.
