Ask a Bookseller: ‘Theo of Golden’ by Allan Levi

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.A book can be a vehicle of empathy, inviting us to walk around in someone else’s world for a while. Elizabeth Mattson of Henry's Books in Spearfish, South Dakota, says her top pick for novels in this category is "Theo of Golden" by Allen Levi. Here’s the scenario: In the southern U.S. city of Golden, there’s a bustling coffee shop called The Chalice with 92 pencil-drawn portraits of townspeople, created by a local artist. When Theo, an elderly man from Portugal, arrives in Golden and decides to settle there, the portraits speak to him. He begins purchasing them one by one and gifting them to the individuals depicted in the portraits. These acts of conversation, connection, and generosity ripple outward through the community. Running through the story is a question: Who is Theo, and why is he there? For readers who prefer to listen to their books, Mattson also says the narrator in the audiobook is excellent.