Having read ‘Birdy’ it came as little surprise to me that in ‘The Yellow Room’ Vallance creates another set of dysfunctional characters, who form unhealthy obsessions.
When sixteen year old Anna receives a letter from her father’s girlfriend, asking that they meet because he has died we are given some clues about the type of relationship Anna has with her family. It did strike me as strange that this issue wasn’t discussed by Anna with anyone, and that Anna received such important news from someone she had never met.
Against her better judgement Anna meets Edie, and is immediately drawn to her. Edie is the mother-figure that Anna desperately craves, and the bond they form is unnaturally close.
As the story progresses we are given some clues as to how this story might resolve. By the time we start to piece some of these ideas together it is, just as it is for Anna, too late to do anything but see them through to their natural conclusion.
Tautly written, and quite unnerving, this is a dark story that I didn’t particularly like but couldn’t put down.