Theo of Golden

Theo of Golden

by Allen Levi

Published 2023

This is a wonderful book I'd have been unlikely to pick up had I just been wandering the shelves of the bookstore or local library.

It was a book for a book club, and as it turns out, it was unavailable in the library at the time the group read it. All the copies had been borrowed, and were reserved by readers for quite a while to come. It's a popular book.

And strangely enough, when I did get the actual physical copy in my hands, it was more than a good read - it was a well-produced volume manufactured with care (and well-edited!),  with a simple and elegant cover design - another of my gripes with publishing in our age. It was a book that was a pleasure to hold, read, or have lying on the chair or table waiting for another session.

That said, one of my first reactions to the story was a petty annoyance.

The premise of the story is simple, even deceptively simple. A wealthy elderly man takes up temporary residence in a small town in Georgia. His name is Theo, and we follow him as he makes friends with locals, beginning with the owner of a coffee shop. In this shop an artist has displayed a quantity of portraits that immediately catch Theo's eye. He also befriends the loquacious and pugnacious owner of the local book shop, Tony, who has named his establishment "Verbivore."  And he has named the older men who congregate there to read and chat  the "Penny Loafers," as they don't buy many of the books they read.

Theo is often referred to as "Mr. Theo," as he tends to refer to the others by the more formal address of Miss, Mrs. and Mr. followed by their last name. He manages to secure an apartment in a local mansion, the friendship and support of some of the locals who travel the downtown streets of the town, and a regular routine of walks and coffees and visits with his new friends. And he hatches a plan.

He buys the portraits hanging in the coffee shop, The Chalice, (and yes, the names of everything carry deeper meanings) and with the help of an at first reluctant office assistant at his landlord's, finds the persons depicted in them. Then he writes them, a formal and hand-written letter, one at a time, and asks them to meet him by a fountain in the Boughery neighborhood. There he conducts a "bestowal" of the portrait upon the person depicted.

Two things occurred to me with the first of these bestowals: it seemed he was doing an unusual kindness, and drawing out the inner spirit of those he contacted, and my reaction was that petty annoyance I noted earlier. He's wealthy; this game works if you're retired and can just buy things and give them away. Why is that special? The writer's talent at simply carrying the reader through that experience solved the problem. And secondly, it seemed to me with the first of these "bestowals," that it was a little creepy. The young woman in the first exchange was just that – a young woman - and her boyfriend was a bit concerned if intrigued. As is, potentially, the reader. 

But the impetus of the little stories that unfold with each of the people Theo meets, with the ongoing story of Theo integrating into the town and its people and life, the sadnesses, joys, mysteries, and simple "storytelling" that comprise this book keeps the reader intrigued and happy to meet yet another subject, and eventually begin to see patterns and crossed paths and even hints at a deeper levels of meaning.

The one clue I'll leave you with about those deeper levels is to pay attention to the names. Each of them has a little more to say to us than it’s just being clever, a pun, a little wordplay a la Dickens or even Shakespeare. You will still not be prepared for the finale, or the ultimate point once it is revealed at the end. But you will also not feel that you've been cheated with a lack of clues, beginning with the little verse at the beginning of the book.