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.
