On the porch of a small cabin overlooking a pond in the woodlands of Harris County, Georgia...that's hallowed creative space for Allen Levi. The author, singer, songwriter, and former probate court judge has been hatching a new book over the past few years.
The idea for for the book came to him while visiting Fountain City Coffee in downtown Columbus. Allen says, "I love the portraits on the walls there. My dear friend, Garry Pound, has put 90 something portraits there, all for sale. Many of them are familiar faces. One day I was standing in line waiting for my coffee order to be filled, looking at the portraits, and I thought wouldn't it be fun and interesting to purchase all of these portraits and find the people depicted in them, and present them their portraits as a gift. And that became the seed corn for the idea (for the book)."
Allen's new book is called "Theo of Golden." He recalls, "My original intent was to put it in my desk drawer, retire it, and maybe my family would find it one day after I have departed. But I have some good friends who read the book and said, please do something with it. And so with their encouragement we decided to wrap it in a pretty cover, get it printed, and here we are."
Theo is the main character in the book. He's an octogenarian from Portugal who visits the town called "Golden." Theo becomes mesmerized by the intriguing pencil portraits on the wall of a downtown coffee shop and sets out to buy and bestow them on the people who are depicted in the drawings.
"Out of that, he makes lots of friendships, learns lots of stories, hears about a lot of pain and struggle in people's lives. And because he is a generous, kind, 86-year old man with a lot of wisdom and a lot of hurt in his own life, he is able to connect with all of these disparate people and form something of a community, a little neighborhood, in an area very much like downtown Columbus, Georgia."
Theo's kind treatment of souls is on display throughout the pages of the book, and they're not just random acts of kindness.
Allen says, "At the end of the day, (the book) is about an old man who very purposefully, not randomly, very purposefully does good to other people. He is a man whose soul is anchored in heaven. He's a man who lives on earth as it is in heaven. And so his kindness is connected, very much grows out of his faith."
Someone recently asked Allen if he was Theo. He responded, "I quickly dispelled that notion by saying, if you knew me well enough, you would never ask that question. But I do hope that I might become like Theo."
At one point in the book, Theo quotes a line of poetry to one of the characters. It's from a line that William Wordsworth wrote: "The best portion of a good man's life is the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love."
Allen says, "This flies in the face of a culture where we all want to be viral. We all want to be big. We all want to be...you pick your word...radical, revolutionary, counter-cultural, whatever. This man was content with doing simple things in obscurity and doing everything possible to keep the camera off of himself."
The cover of "Theo of Golden" is simple, a single hand-drawn feather.
"The feather becomes something of a symbol that works its way through the story," according to Allen. "Feathers are soft. They are strong. They are beautiful. They get discarded sometimes carelessly."
One of the characters in the book, a homeless woman named Ellen, came up with a unique gift for Theo as a thank you for her portrait. It was a small piece of wood with holes punched in the top filled with a variety of feathers.
Allen paints a beautiful word picture when he says, "And so feathers, this idea of lost things being found...she was a lost thing who in a sense was found by this man's kindness. The idea of the lost becoming found and beautiful and artful and expressive and part of a gathering...it's just a nice metaphor for the theme of this book."
An autographed copy of "Theo of Golden" is available by going to Allen's website: www.allenlevi.com. It is also available on Amazon.com.
0 Comments