- My Rating: 3.75/5
- Goodreads Rating: 4.61/5
- Year Published: 2023
- Page Count: 400
“[They] are told that this was a place where heaven and earth met in the form of an old Portuguese man. They are told that all, who choose to be, are capable of saintliness. They are also told that faith, hope, and love endure, but the greatest of these is love.”
Synopsis
An older man by the name of Theo arrives in the small town of Golden at eighty-six years old. The shroud of mystery around him doesn’t prevent him and his jovial nature from winning over the townsfolk. On one of his first days in Golden, he enters a coffee shop. This coffee shop displays 92 hand-sketched portraits of its patrons, masterfully created by a local artist. Theo decides it’s his mission to bestow these portraits onto their subjects—but as he does so, it becomes clear that he’s stumbled onto something reverent and almost wholly unexplainable.
Theo makes friends and loses them, heals the past and chases the future, and imparts wisdom onto his new (and large) circle of friends. Theo of Golden is a powerful novel about the power of love, about growing and learning from past mistakes, and about treating people with the knowledge that everyone is God’s creation.
The Review (Spoiler-free!)
This book is, in one word, enchanting. While Golden is not a perfect town by any means, the sense of community within it shines so brightly that it grabs you by the wrist and yanks you into the town’s streets. I cried multiple times throughout Theo of Golden, and half the time I couldn’t tell if they were sad or happy tears.
The writing itself is masterful, the words easily painting pictures in the reader’s mind. The characters are fully fleshed out and lovable, with enough quirks that they’re supremely entertaining to read about. I thought the way Theo’s backstory was slowly revealed was done very well, and this was overall a very enjoyable read.
So, you may be wondering, why 3.75 stars? There were a few reasons. First, the ensemble grew so large by the end that I was struggling to remember who was who, which is a problem I rarely encounter in books. Second, the plot itself, while touching, was just that. A quaint, meaningful story that didn’t quite keep me wanting to turn the pages. I found that I was content reading a chapter and putting down the book. Now, every book doesn’t need to be a page-turner, especially in literary fiction. But I felt that at multiple points, I could have forgotten I was reading Theo of Golden and not cared.
I do want to mention that this is Levi’s debut novel, and it’s self-published. It is spectacular compared to other novels in the same circumstances. I look forward to Levi hopefully continuing to write—I think with the right guidance and an editing team, he could easily create a masterpiece.
“When you drink this port, you taste the hillside of my childhood. You taste the sunlight and the Douro…You taste the music of the accordion, the laughter of the children, and the prayer of the priest. You taste a young man’s joy and an old man’s memory.”
Recommendation
This novel is beautifully written. The prose is strong (though it does tend to ramble), and the story itself is sweet. If you enjoy literary fiction, I’d recommend this with the caveat that it isn’t exactly life-changing, but it is enjoyable. If you’re less of a literary fiction fan, I wouldn’t say Theo of Golden would be the book to change that opinion.
“It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another.”
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