It appears that I agree with a few other reviews already posted here. If this were not an early reviewer selection, I would have put the book down early on. I must say, I've only done that with a handful of books in my 30+ years of reading. Though I usually enjoy a novel in an historic setting, this book had me lost and a bit confused, even bored at times. Even some sentence structure had me losing track of the storyline. It is described as a "beautiful novel" and I found that not to be the case. The story is depressing, with none of the characters being happy, no one truly relates to each other, and their dysfunction goes back many years, if not generations without resolution. The hope of finding a purpose behind this book is what kept me reading this novel, but the end left me disappointed when the purpose was never found. ( )

This is an additional book kindly sent to me by Unbridled books, review will appear shortly. I have reviewed 2 books for Unbridled Books, being 'The Melancholy Fate of Captain Lewis" and 'The Pirates Daughter' and I enjoyed both of them. This is a publisher who clearly has a good eye. I have started Every Past Thing which is a first novel by Pamela Thompson and so far it is very good. I like reading 1st novels, and the Reviewers program introduces me to authors that I would not otherwise read.

I have now read the book and unfortunately I have to agree with most of the other reviews. This book is deadly boring. There is no doubt that Pamela Thompson can write beautiful prose but she needs to do more for her readers. This is a novel without a plot. Nothing happens. I kept waiting for something but it never came. I don't think average readers would read more than a few pages. The setting and time offer numerous opportunities for interesting events but the author simply doesn't engage her characters with anything more than their own poetic emotions. I think the problem is that the author stuck too closely to her blueprint of the painting. Every tiny detail of the painting has to be revealed and explained so that in the end we know every blade of grass and what it represents but it is a torturous process and life around the characters is ignored. Samuel's new wife Alice is the only character in the book that rings true and she is genuinely puzzled by these supposedly brilliant people who can barely talk but are full of the most profound thoughts and memories.

Ms Thompson should write a story next time, make her characters come to life, and have them do something other than stare at the river. Have them break away from the painting and into life, raw and unpredictable and real. ( )

Every Past Thing by Pamela Thompson is a fictional account of a week in the lives of American painter Edwin Elmer and his wife, Mary. They have moved from their home in Massachusetts to New York City where Edwin's brother Samuel and his wife Alice live. Edwin and Mary have never recovered from the loss of their only child, Effie. Edwin attends classes at an art school, while Mary spends her days reading old letters from a former love and writing in her journal in a tavern run by anarchists.

This scenario is as close to a plot as you will find, and at best it is only loosely connected. The majority of the book is spent in the head of Mary, and occasionally Edwin, each of whom can't comprehend the loss of their daughter nor quite understand what has happened to their marriage. Both pine for former and would-be lovers.

The book was a struggle for me. For all the cleverness of the prose and the deep delving into the minds of the two main characters, I feel that the author was trying too hard to make this an uber-literary read. Yet I continued, because there were devices and turns of phrases that were interesting enough to make me keep reading. Overall, though, it fell way short of my expectations. ( )

Every Past Thing is a very complicated book. I can’t say that I liked the book as a whole, but the more I read, the more I became wrapped up in the novel. This is not a novel to curl up with on a rainy day and get lost in. It is a very difficult read, at times painfully boring. Pamela Thompson’s prose is dense and challenging, but altogether beautiful. She is a very talented writer. She needs to be taken in small bites and savored, chewed on for a bit. By the end of the novel I cared very deeply for Mary and Edwin. Their discontent was palpable, so much that it made me uncomfortable at times.

One of the things I loved about this novel was the way Thompson revealed little bits at a time about Mary and Elmer’s past. You really didn’t learn the whole story about the relationship between Mary, Elmer, and Elmer’s brother Samuel until the very end.

I thought she handled Mary’s “search” for Jimmy Roberts, a man she had a brief relationship many years before, artfully. I quote “search” because I don’t feel Mary was really looking for Jimmy as much as hoping she might encounter him. And the near misses were brilliant.

Thompson’s inclusion of Emerson quotes throughout the novel delighted me, although I still find him very difficult to read.

When I first started this book, up until maybe 2/3 of the way through it, I thought I would never recommend it to anyone. So dry, so difficult. But something happened near the end. I now say, pick it up if you’re brave. Be willing to give it some time. Just bury yourself in it, and find Thompson’s rhythm. It might surprise you. ( )

the author stumbled across a painting Smith College Art Museum and it evolved into a novel, this novel. The painting is question is on the dust jacket.

The story is set in Manhattan in a time of great political and social upheaval. Emma Goldman was stirring things up, women were taking advantage of more freedoms, questions were being asked. If you have a time/setting like this, you have to treat it as a character in its own right. Thompson failed to take this opportunity. She writes instead about a woman who is still in mourning for a child she lost years before. Her husband, the painter in question, buries himself in his work leaving her to her own devices.

Internal monologue has to achieve something besides backstory. There is a lot of internal monologue here, too much, really.

All in all, the novel doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, or how to figure that out. Most likely that reflects the author's feelings as she was writing it.