What works about Theo of Golden
The portraits are a lovely idea. Theo’s secrecy, wealth and relationship with Asher make Allen Levi’s novel more complicated than its message about kindness suggests.
Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden begins with an elderly Portuguese man arriving in a Georgia town and becoming fascinated by 92 pencil portraits hanging in a coffee shop. He buys them one by one and finds the people in them, usually with a handwritten note and an invitation to talk. It is an odd, rather lovely way of introducing yourself to a place. It also gives the novel an episodic structure, with each portrait opening into somebody else’s life.
There’s a practicality to the gesture that I like. The artist gets paid, the subject receives something personal, and Theo has a reason to learn about someone he might otherwise never meet. He also pays attention after the gift is delivered. His friendship with Tony, a prickly bookstore owner and Vietnam veteran, develops through repeated encounters and gradually makes room for things Tony has kept to himself. It’s one of the relationships that feels genuinely earned.
When Theo meets Ellen, an unhoused woman whose daughter was taken from her years earlier, the stakes are different. His interest in her is sincere, and the book lets Ellen be funny and resourceful. I was less convinced by how neatly her circumstances begin to improve around him. Affection and gifts help, but her housing, mental health and vulnerability to violence are complicated problems. The novel sometimes makes generosity look easier than it is because Theo has both unusual patience and extraordinary means.
The revelation that Theo is Zila, a celebrated painter, clarifies how he can finance some of his interventions. More importantly, it changes the meaning of his relationship with Asher, the artist behind the portraits. Theo is Asher’s biological father. He came to Golden specifically to know his son, while keeping that relationship secret in accordance with a request from Asher’s mother. Buying his son’s work and spending time with him also serves a private longing that Theo never explains.
I think this is the most interesting complication in the book. Theo invites people to share things they may never have told anyone while protecting a central fact about himself. He has understandable reasons, but Asher never gets the chance to participate in their relationship with the same knowledge. Theo’s restraint is presented as loving. It also leaves him in control of an intimacy that belongs to two people.
There’s a religious sensibility running through the novel, particularly its belief in grace and the possibility of change. Simone’s recital, when the young cellist honours Theo with a piece of music, is a good example of generosity becoming reciprocal. Theo is genuinely surprised to receive the kind of care he has been offering other people. I found that more convincing than some of the book’s bigger emotional moments.
The final attack on Ellen and Simone, followed by Theo’s fatal fall from his balcony, is much more heavy-handed. The violence exposes how vulnerable Ellen remains even in a community full of people who care about her. Yet it also arrives just in time to remove Theo and set up the revelations about his life. The epilogue offers a reassuring future for nearly everyone, including the possibility of Ellen reuniting with her daughter. I wasn’t entirely persuaded by how neatly such difficult lives were resolved.
Still, I think the book’s faith in people is part of its appeal, and not something that needs to be dismissed as naïve. The portraits work as a premise because they begin with noticing a real person and taking an interest in their life. Theo’s secret makes that idea more complicated. For all his gift for seeing people, allowing himself to be known remains much harder.