JCO Book Club

In Allen Levi's debut novel Theo of Golden, a stranger named Theo arrives one spring morning in the small Southern city of Golden. He explains little about himself. At the local coffeehouse he finds the walls hung with pencil portraits of the townspeople, and he begins buying them, one at a time, to return each one to the person whose face it shows. He asks for nothing back but their story. From that one odd, repeating gesture, the whole novel unfolds: a regret here, a secret there, a life quietly turned. Levi's book moves slowly and on purpose, more interested in attention than incident, and it has found a wide and devoted readership for the simplest of reasons - it asks what it would mean to truly see the people around us. You are welcome to join us at 11.30am to share a brown bag lunch before we satrt the discussion…