Theo of Golden, a review by Susan

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Theo of Golden

Allen Levi

399 pages

Atria Books

Goodreads/Amazon/Bookshop.org

Theo of Golden is a person that most of us would like to meet. He is an elderly gentleman in his 80s who seems to genuinely care about people, has old world manners, and seems like someone’s beloved grandfather.  He shows up in Golden, Georgia for reasons that are not clear. He is mysterious.  Golden seems to be an average southern town.  Most people are pleasant but some are not.  At first, it seems that this book lacks conflict and I will be honest with you:  if you are looking for the kind of conflict that will have you looking over your shoulder or wanting to kill one of the characters, this book isn’t for you.

If you are looking for a nice, quiet book, perhaps a palate cleanser between weightier tomes, or something light and inspirational, you should take a gander.

Some have criticized this book as religious.  I didn’t find this book to be religious.  Certainly, while there are some passing references to it, I did not see this as a concern and I am not someone who likes religion in my books.  At best, one could argue there is a quiet spirituality, perhaps because we have goodness and our brains want to translate one into the other.  In any event, this did not bother me at all.

This is clearly literary fiction in the sense that character development is key.  I think there are two main characters that are developed in this town: Theo and the collective town of Golden.  We have Theo, who is a stranger in town.  He shows up suddenly and discovers portraits of townspeople in one of the cafes and admires them.  He decides to purchase these paintings one by one, focusing on ones where the subject displays some sort of sadness.  He then gives the paintings away to the subjects.  This, or course, arouses some suspicion; in the townspeople and in the readers.  Just why is this very old man giving away these portraits with nothing seemingly expected in return.  Little by little, the people in the town largely discover that Theo has no nefarious motive; he is just a nice elderly gentleman.  Over time, we learn more about him, for example, how he can afford to do what he is doing and, eventually why he is there, in that particular place.  He changes the town and the town grows to revere him.  That is pretty much what happens, so if you are looking for something action packed, this isn’t it.  However, if you are looking for how people, even quiet people, can affect one another and be kind to each other, then this is for you.

In addition to the stellar character development and the town as a character (I love novels that successfully accomplish this), this author’s prose is beautiful without being overly flowery; it fits right into the context of the book.  I enjoyed this and found this to be a great book to start off the new year.  If I get to it, I may reread it some day, because I feel like there are some layers to it that I have not yet figured out.  In some ways, this reminds me of Tuesdays With Morrie, quiet but inspirational. I almost didn’t read it because I am a little tired of overhyped books but this one was worth the hype.  I am very pleased to have overcome this little prejudice and picked up this book when I did.