Most of the time, and like most people, I suspect, I read a novel, take some pleasure from it if pleasure is to be had, and move on. But then along comes one of those rare fictions packed with ideas and emotions so explosive that my worldview is never again quite the same.
When I was 24, Larry Woiwode’s 1975 “Beyond the Bedroom Wall” staggered me with the beauty of its prose and its dive into family life. Mark Helprin’s 1991 “A Soldier of the Great War,” which I’ve visited time and again since my first reading, permanently revived in me the wonder in living and sense of adventure I’d left behind in adolescence.
And now, even at the ripe old age of 75, I’ve met a book, “Theo of Golden” (Atria Books, 2025, 400 pages), that has rocked my world with some revelations.
Here attorney and judge Allen Levi gives us Theo, an 86-year-old protagonist — hero would also apply — who appears one day in the fictional southern town of Golden. He politely evades questions about his last name, his profession, any specifics about his life, and his reason for spending a year in Golden. Theo’s fit for his age, thoughtful, kind, and clearly intelligent, and so the people who make his acquaintance welcome him, mysteries and all.
Theo has plenty of money, though neither the townspeople nor readers have any idea how he earned it, and he loves art, birdwatching, rivers, and beauty. He becomes a regular at the Chalice, the coffee shop near his apartment, and is immediately entranced by the 92 pencil drawings hanging from the walls, artist Arthur Glissen’s portraits of locals and college students. Captivated by the brilliance and talent that went into these moderately priced drawings, Theo hits on the idea of purchasing them one or two at a time and returning them to what he calls their “owners,” the people who were the subjects of Glissen’s pencil.
Every time Theo buys one of the portraits, he writes a note to the “owner” and invites that person to meet him on a park bench near the town’s fountain. As each arrives, some with fear, some wondering at the strangeness of this request, Theo gives them the portrait, tells them what he sees of them in the drawing, and so induces them to share with him and the rest of us their sorrows and loves.
My bare and inadequate description reveals only the skeleton of this story. There’s much, much more that takes place as the lives of these characters blend together into a rough community. Just as Theo discerns from the drawings on the café wall the emotional freight these people carry, so does Allen Levi sweep us into their hearts, dreams, and tribulations.
The first person to whom Theo gives a drawing is Minnette Prentiss, wife of an attorney, an accountant, and a woman who longs most of all to be a mother. After they’ve become acquainted a bit, and Theo unwraps the painting, this scene takes place:
“Theo paused, his gaze fixed on the portrait. He tapped it with his finger.
“‘There is strength in this face.’
“He paused again. ‘And bravery.’
“Another pause. “And kindness…Yes.’
“And then, a bit more sadly, ‘And sadness. The good kind. It is all there.’”
Inspired by these observations to speak, Minnette soon shares the cause of that sadness, an overbearing money-obsessed father who by his willpower and mockery has shunted aside her longing for motherhood in favor of money and success. Later, back home with the husband Minnette loves, “They hung the picture in the bedroom, at a place where Minnette often stood to dress in the mornings. Had anyone walked in at the right moment and listened carefully, they might have heard her whisper, ‘Good morning, St. Minnette. You are strong. And you are brave. And you are kind. Even when you are sad.’”
“Theo of Golden” heightened my awareness of the secrets that lie beneath the faces of strangers I pass in the street or even in the faces of those I know and love. The book’s a sharp reminder to blend judgment with compassion, to walk in another’s shoes, and to see others as souls rather than as stereotypes.
The novel’s greatest revelation for me, however, came when I judged some scene as overly sentimental and cheesy, but then realized that this judgment reflected poorly on me rather than on the book. Ours is a cynical age, and though I’ve tried to resist that cancer, Allen Levi’s mirror of print and paper revealed I wasn’t totally immune after all.
Whether readers will find “Theo of Golden” as moving as I did is open to debate. Sometimes our minds and hearts are prepared at precisely the right time to receive precisely the right book, and maybe that was the case with me.
I’ll end with these two notes. On Friday, Oct. 2, I finished the novel. On Saturday I opened it to page one and proceeded to read it again from beginning to end, wanting to sink again into Golden and Theo’s magical influence on the town. I don’t know that I’ve done that since childhood, and maybe not even then.
Finally, from time to time I’d read again the sentence on the back of book that comes directly from the story: “For everything to be good, truly good, there must be love in it. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child—nothing is what it’s supposed to be if love is not at the core.”
Love is at the core of “Theo of Golden.”
(Jeff Minick reviews books and has written four of his own: two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust On Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning As I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” minick0301@gmail.com.)