Not long ago, I was reading the Washington Post and an interesting article caught my eye. It was a story about an unknown author who self-published a book only to have it turn into a blockbuster success. I wrote my first book in 2013. My friend David Taggart (rest his soul), acted as my unofficial agent and sent a summary of a project about the pension market to the biggest academic publisher. They came back immediately, offered me an advance, and gave me a schedule to produce the book. It was all easy as one, two, three. After that, I’ve written a half dozen other books (including two co-written), all of which I’ve self-published and then tried to promote and market. I and my co-authors have tried everything and spent thousands of dollars to gain traction for these books…all to no avail. I still get two texts or emails and at least one call per week from some publishing huckster (usually from Asia) proposing one approach or another to take my works to publishing or production heaven. I pursue none of them any more, but I write every day, sometimes non-stop, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit to occasionally dreaming about my work going viral through some miracle.
So, when I read about his guy, Allen Levi, who had been an attorney, a judge and a songwriter/musician, who lived in a small town in Georgia and wrote a book that has taken the literary market by storm, it was pretty intriguing to me. What was even more intriguing was that he is a guy about my age, who has, now suddenly been discovered as a writer. I have said for a decade that to become a successful writer, lightning has to strike. Well, here was a guy and his book that were struck by lightning, so I downloaded the book on Audible.. Now that I’m in my home gym exercising every day, I need something engaging to listen to. I figured it was worth one of my three monthly credits to try out this lightning-struck novel called Theo of Golden.
The story begins when a mysterious elderly stranger named Theo arrives one spring morning in Golden, a small Southern city in Georgia, and no one knows where he came from or why he’s there. Theo is an 86-year-old man from Portugal who visits a local coffeehouse where ninety-two pencil portraits hang on the walls. These are portraits of local people drawn by a local artist. Theo begins purchasing them one at a time to return them as gifts to their “rightful owners”. With each portrait he returns, Theo makes friendships, learns people’s stories, and hears about their pain and struggles. Because Theo is a generous, kind man with wisdom and hurt in his own life, he’s able to connect with disparate people and form a community. With each exchange, a story is told, a friendship born, and a life altered.
The book explores the power of creative generosity, the importance of wonder to a purposeful life, and the invisible threads of kindness that bind people to one another. At its core, the book is about an old man who purposefully does good for other people through small, nameless acts of kindness. Theo is a literate man. He is forever referencing famous writers. So, it’s no surprise that he connects his core concept on kindness to a famous quote by William Wordsworth. The Wordsworth quote featured in the book is: “The best portion of a good man’s life is the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.” This line captures the central theme of the novel, that the most meaningful parts of life aren’t grand, public gestures but rather the small, quiet, often anonymous acts of kindness we do for others. It’s a perfect encapsulation of Theo’s character and his approach to generosity throughout the story.
It’s notable that the book became a blockbuster with virtually no marketing or social media presence, surprising the publishing industry as one of the biggest sellers of the 2025 year. Allen Levi got the idea for the book while visiting Fountain City Coffee in his home town of Columbus, Georgia, where he admired the portraits on the walls…so it’s more of a real life story than not. The reviews about the book are expectedly polarized. Some readers (obviously the majority) find it deeply moving and life-affirming, while others criticize it as overly sentimental or preachy. I am among those who find it deeply moving.
There have been other books with similar themes of quiet kindness, community building, and the transformative power of small gestures. The one that comes to mind first is A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, which came to my attention via the Swedish movie by the same name and then the stylized remake with Tom Hanks called A Man Called Otto. It’s about a curmudgeonly old man whose gruff exterior hides a generous heart, ultimately building community through small acts of help. Then there was The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce , about an ordinary man who walks across England to save a friend, touching lives along the way. And there are others. These books share that same gentle, affirming quality focused on human goodness rather than dramatic conflict.
When people talk about life-affirming stories, I find that as a storyteller, that’s what I aspire to write. The optimist in me wants the world to be more like Theo of Golden and less like Trump of Mar-a-Lago. In fact, Theo is the very antithesis of Trump, which, come to think of it, may be why I like him and his story so much. It may also be why this story is resonating with so many grassroots people. It has been clear for some time that the world is getting tired of Trump and the MAGA ways. It may be hard to imagine why it’s taken so long, but it has also always been inevitable. The world can only take so much brutality and crassness before it overloads and wants to return to grace and kindness. I sense that Theo may be a turning point in the American psyche. Let’s hope so.
Yes, by God, let’s hope so. It’s really not that difficult to be kind.