Theo of Golden By Allen Levi
If you need a lift after the taxing winter we have had, here’s a book for you. Theo of Golden is gentle, kind, full of truths and carrying a message we should all take to heart. It is the story of an elderly and mysterious man named only Theo–no last name– who arrives in a small Georgia town and settles in temporarily. Soon he finds a coffee shop which has a display of sketches of various townspeople. There are 32 in all. Theo is impressed with them, and he embarks on a campaign to buy them one at a time and give them to the people who have unknowingly been the artist’s models. Because the artist is skillful at painting the inner person as well as the outer one, his portraits are very moving, and Theo wants to share them.
Each week during warm weather he sends a handwritten invitation to someone living in the town whose portrait hangs on the wall of the coffee shop. He invites that person to meet him on a park bench near where he is living, and they have a conversation in which Theo asks them to tell him their life’s stories. Because he is a good listener and an equally good asker of questions, Theo soon comes to know each of the recipients of a portrait. However, he never reveals his own background, at least not directly. Nevertheless, he is soon much admired and trusted by all with whom he comes in contact. Soon he finds that he has acquired a warm circle of new friends; he is able to help many of them behind the scenes, enriching his own life as well as theirs.
The reader, like Theo’s new friends, learns about some facets of his life through his conversations but is never able to put the pieces together. Only at the end of the book does the picture–his own history– become clear. It is a heart-warming history, with ups and downs of course, with mistakes and regrets, but above all with affection and wisdom and generosity. In many ways Theo is an old-fashioned courtly gentleman, soft-spoken and well mannered. In the book there is no cynicism in regard to life’s big questions, and only one truly negative character. How refreshing! It’s the kind of book you want to keep and read again just to be sure you don’t miss anything that you need to ponder. And you feel somehow better off having known Theo, even though your acquaintance comes through the medium of a short novel.