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The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore
Something strange has happened to Thomas Passmore. Waking from a warm Australian beach, he finds himself at Heathrow Airport on a winter's morning, only he can't remember getting there. Burdened with emotional baggage and an unshakable sense of deja vu, Thomas tries to piece together fragments of his life that he's just not sure he should be remembering at all...Tom, a museum curator, walks in the shadow of the past. Haunted by his father's suicide, his mother's rejection and by vivid dreams of a figure from his past, he must now learn to live fully in the present or remain a sleepwalker forever. His increasingly bizarre journey - set against the ebb and flow of the sea, the rush of motorway traffic; against urban and rural landscapes - takes him through childhood, a self-destructive adolescence steeped in the mystery of his father's suicide, and into a world where one man's struggle to live again is as timeless as the struggle between winter and spring, night and day.
Hardcover
First published August 28, 2008
About the author
Paul Burman
4 books18 followersPaul Burman was born in Northamptonshire, England, but currently lives in Port Fairy, Australia.
He’s worked in a wine-bottling factory, a deep freeze, a plumbing warehouse, the Post Office; he’s been an English teacher, a shop assistant, a maize ‘castrator’ in the south of France, and he once had a newspaper round until a neighbour’s dog bit him.
As a child, he lied about his age to become a Beefeater at the Tower of London, but was sent to school instead, where he spent many years failing to escape.
That he’s been compulsively reading and writing fiction from the age of 6 may be the result of a childhood indiscretion, in which he was caught inadvertently telling the truth. Making up stories has remained a happy obsession ever since.
He’s worked in a wine-bottling factory, a deep freeze, a plumbing warehouse, the Post Office; he’s been an English teacher, a shop assistant, a maize ‘castrator’ in the south of France, and he once had a newspaper round until a neighbour’s dog bit him.
As a child, he lied about his age to become a Beefeater at the Tower of London, but was sent to school instead, where he spent many years failing to escape.
That he’s been compulsively reading and writing fiction from the age of 6 may be the result of a childhood indiscretion, in which he was caught inadvertently telling the truth. Making up stories has remained a happy obsession ever since.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 27, 2025
Setting: Victoria, Australia & Northampton, England.
The book opens with the narrator, Thomas Passmore, settling in to his new life in Australia with wife Elin and their three children.
But he is soon back to reminiscing about his childhood in Northampton: the petty criminal shenanigans with his best mate Gazza, the death of his father when he was seven and his infatuation with his first serious girlfriend Kate. The tale of this relationship is a major part of the book as it is obviously of critical importance to Thomas as he narrates his tale, even though it only lasts for a year or so. When Kate goes off to university in London, she decides to end things, much to Thomas's disappointment.
So, when his mother falls seriously ill shortly after he has emigrated, he returns to England to be at her bedside - but takes the opportunity to try to reconnect with Kate, even though some twenty years have passed....
This was quite an entertaining read overall but let itself down towards the end with what was supposed to be some form of hallucinations that Thomas was undergoing after ending up in hospital - but it only served to confuse me about what I should believe from what had gone before! It even had me doubting Kate's existence at all at one stage! I also didn't really understand the title!! Hence my rating of only three stars for what could have been a four star read - 6.5/10.
The book opens with the narrator, Thomas Passmore, settling in to his new life in Australia with wife Elin and their three children.
But he is soon back to reminiscing about his childhood in Northampton: the petty criminal shenanigans with his best mate Gazza, the death of his father when he was seven and his infatuation with his first serious girlfriend Kate. The tale of this relationship is a major part of the book as it is obviously of critical importance to Thomas as he narrates his tale, even though it only lasts for a year or so. When Kate goes off to university in London, she decides to end things, much to Thomas's disappointment.
So, when his mother falls seriously ill shortly after he has emigrated, he returns to England to be at her bedside - but takes the opportunity to try to reconnect with Kate, even though some twenty years have passed....
This was quite an entertaining read overall but let itself down towards the end with what was supposed to be some form of hallucinations that Thomas was undergoing after ending up in hospital - but it only served to confuse me about what I should believe from what had gone before! It even had me doubting Kate's existence at all at one stage! I also didn't really understand the title!! Hence my rating of only three stars for what could have been a four star read - 6.5/10.
February 18, 2009
One of the great joys of reviewing is happening upon a small press book from a first author that is so good, you can’t stop thinking about it. It’s a wonderful serendipity that publishers, agents and reviewers wearily hope for and rarely find. The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore is one of those books. It’s tightly, expertly written, and yet so tenderly rendered, that the reader descends directly into Thomas Passmore’s dreams, struggling to surface back to reality along with the protagonist.
At first glance the story seems simple enough. A man wakes from a strange dream as he lands in Heathrow from Sydney, slightly disoriented. There’s nothing too odd in Thomas Passmore’s initial disorientation. Anyone who has taken a long flight will recognise that muzzy jetlagged sense of confusion, and if it isn’t the first time, the déjà vu. Thomas understands convention, and speaks and navigates his way through the airport clearly. His mission on this visit is to spend time with his dying mother, and to find an old girlfriend and discover why she suddenly left him a number of years ago. It doesn’t sound like much of a plot, and the connection between Kate and his mother seems a tenuous one, but the resulting journey progresses in a spiral through Thomas’ past where he has to confront a number of interwoven demons. It’s a psychological trip that, for the reader, is both confronting and intimately, almost horribly, familiar. It’s more than just a trip down memory lane for Thomas, it’s a fight for life, underpinned by a mystery that is both concrete and metaphoric.
The novel is ambitious in that it attempts the journey from a very deep starting point: Thomas’ unconscious psyche. The writing is richly poetic, at times so charged that you could publish it as stanzas and it would work: "As seasons pass, I coil tighter. Spend months pulling the world in on myself. Become my own black hole, sucking the bright energy out of my most colourful dreams, spitting out nothing. (190)"
The story is built around a triumvirate of demons: Thomas’ ex-girlfriend Kate, his icy mother, and his father, who committed suicide when Thomas was quite young. Each of these people shift-shape through the book: moving between the antagonist and counsellor roles, and moving in and out of perspective. Navigating through the maze of loss, Thomas has to work through his emotions and internalised responses to these people, determining who he is now, or he will literally die. As he moves through his journey to the past, there is always the present he has to reference: the wife and children he has left in Australia. And though Thomas’ search may seem insular at times, it’s the extraordinary force of Burman’s writing that keeps the reader deeply engaged; making Thomas’ story our own.
Although the ending is given away right from the start, the shear physical blow of it still comes as a shock. Suddenly all the disjointedness in the novel, which never impedes readability or progression, is put right in an affirmative transformation that is both large and tiny in scope. The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore is deeply original, powerfully moving, and hugely satisfying. The reader can expect to cry, but not in any contrived way. The way in which Burman manages to traverse the line between the inner and outer world is masterful. This is a novel deeply rooted in time and place, while it moves beyond both of those things. It is an exceptional debut.
At first glance the story seems simple enough. A man wakes from a strange dream as he lands in Heathrow from Sydney, slightly disoriented. There’s nothing too odd in Thomas Passmore’s initial disorientation. Anyone who has taken a long flight will recognise that muzzy jetlagged sense of confusion, and if it isn’t the first time, the déjà vu. Thomas understands convention, and speaks and navigates his way through the airport clearly. His mission on this visit is to spend time with his dying mother, and to find an old girlfriend and discover why she suddenly left him a number of years ago. It doesn’t sound like much of a plot, and the connection between Kate and his mother seems a tenuous one, but the resulting journey progresses in a spiral through Thomas’ past where he has to confront a number of interwoven demons. It’s a psychological trip that, for the reader, is both confronting and intimately, almost horribly, familiar. It’s more than just a trip down memory lane for Thomas, it’s a fight for life, underpinned by a mystery that is both concrete and metaphoric.
The novel is ambitious in that it attempts the journey from a very deep starting point: Thomas’ unconscious psyche. The writing is richly poetic, at times so charged that you could publish it as stanzas and it would work: "As seasons pass, I coil tighter. Spend months pulling the world in on myself. Become my own black hole, sucking the bright energy out of my most colourful dreams, spitting out nothing. (190)"
The story is built around a triumvirate of demons: Thomas’ ex-girlfriend Kate, his icy mother, and his father, who committed suicide when Thomas was quite young. Each of these people shift-shape through the book: moving between the antagonist and counsellor roles, and moving in and out of perspective. Navigating through the maze of loss, Thomas has to work through his emotions and internalised responses to these people, determining who he is now, or he will literally die. As he moves through his journey to the past, there is always the present he has to reference: the wife and children he has left in Australia. And though Thomas’ search may seem insular at times, it’s the extraordinary force of Burman’s writing that keeps the reader deeply engaged; making Thomas’ story our own.
Although the ending is given away right from the start, the shear physical blow of it still comes as a shock. Suddenly all the disjointedness in the novel, which never impedes readability or progression, is put right in an affirmative transformation that is both large and tiny in scope. The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore is deeply original, powerfully moving, and hugely satisfying. The reader can expect to cry, but not in any contrived way. The way in which Burman manages to traverse the line between the inner and outer world is masterful. This is a novel deeply rooted in time and place, while it moves beyond both of those things. It is an exceptional debut.
October 18, 2016
Interesting book.
I had no idea what this book entailed, I am so glad i took the effort to read it, the characters were so strong and believable and it was a page Turner beyond all doubt.
I had no idea what this book entailed, I am so glad i took the effort to read it, the characters were so strong and believable and it was a page Turner beyond all doubt.
November 17, 2016
Of everything I've written, this is my absolute favourite. I appreciate that not everyone will 'get it', but for the time-being it remains the book I would be judged by - the work I am proudest of.
The best feedback I've ever received came independently from two readers, who told me that as soon as they finished the book they began reading it again.
The best feedback I've ever received came independently from two readers, who told me that as soon as they finished the book they began reading it again.
June 27, 2012
Just didn't get it. From dreams, to the past to present - too confusing!!!
July 13, 2012
Beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews