RaveThe Observer (UK)... honest and daring ... As Broom traces the house’s history from 1961 to, and beyond, its destruction, she also traces, or reveals, the emptiness of that dream, an emptiness that many millions across America have also realised in the years since ... This is not, to be clear, literary disaster porn. The author has other plans: \'to resurrect a house with words”\' In so doing, she resurrects her city or, rather, presents it for the first time ... I must confess: early on during some of this detail, I jotted in the margins: “I personally really do not care about all this.” Should you feel the same, please continue. You will find, later, advice the author received from a French Quarter neighbour whose stories went on a little too long for Broom’s liking. “Jesus Christ, darling,” he would say. “Will you find some patience?” It is clear that the author found enough to write this important book. It is clear, also, that she rightfully demands the same of us. The Yellow House is a work that refuses to capitulate to your impatience – not out of an arrogant self-indulgence, but out of care. She seems to say: You will not get your entertainment at my people’s expense. This strikes me as rare, even brave. Many writers, or at least this writer, feel alienated from their family. But here is a writer who appears fully enmeshed in a family, in a clan, a system of interdependence and responsibility. One of the remarkable traits of The Yellow House, which makes it something larger than a personal narrative, is that the story is not fashioned from Broom’s voice alone. Her mother’s words are interspersed seamlessly with hers ... Sarah Broom has shown us a way to go back home, perhaps to heal