Buzzy books are in abundance this summer. Caro Claire Burke’s twisted tradwife tale Yesteryear is still flying off the shelves, as are copies of Bell Burden’s controversial marriage memoir Strangers and Patrick Radden Keefe’s nonfiction thriller London Falling. Not to mention that little known Greek poem The Odyssey getting a second wind some 2,700 years later.
But there is one book giving each of these titles a run for their money, nipping at their heels on various bestseller lists and, in some cases, already surpassing them. Today, the title in question perches at the top of The New York Times ranking, and in the US, it has long since claimed the top spot on the Amazon charts for fiction, leaving poor old Homer in its pulpy dust. And if you’re in the UK you may not even have heard of it at all.
Theo of Golden is the debut novel from Allen Levi, an ex-lawyer and musician from Alabama who, just shy of 70 years old, decided to take a stab at writing for the first time. “I just wanted to see if I had the muscle to write a piece of long fiction,” he told The Washington Post in December last year. The result of his endeavour is the 400-page novel that, with no marketing campaign, and for two years, no mainstream publisher, has gone on to become a bestseller a full three years after Levi self-published – something he only did at the behest of his friends. Originally, he had planned to shove the manuscript in a drawer and forget about it.
The novel tells the story of an elderly man, Theo, who moves to the fictional Southern town of Golden. One morning, while in line at his local coffee shop, he sees 92 pencil portraits for sale on the wall. Theo buys all of them and sets off on a mission to return the works to their subjects and “rightful owners”. It’s a gentle and life-affirming read that calls to mind Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie, and the pop-philosophical optimism of Matt Haig. The Bible-inflicted narrative does become obviously religious towards its end although Levi has said he did not intend to write a Christian novel and went so far as to turn down a Christian publisher.
Even more heartwarming than the book itself is how it came to be. Born in Bay Minette, Alabama, Levi didn’t have aspirations to become an author, though he was interested in literature. After 13 years of practicing law in Columbus, Georgia, he moved to the UK to study Scottish fiction at the University of Edinburgh. His love of language, however, manifested instead in lyrics and Levi pivoted to become a full-time singer-songwriter, performing at various events and for Christian organisations around the US over the next couple of decades.
He moved back home around 2010 to be with his late brother Gary, who had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, and their aging father. After one term working as a probate judge, Levi wasn’t sure what to do next in his life. That’s when he happened across 92 pencil portraits for sale at his local coffee shop. Just like his protagonist, Levi bought them. Not all, but a few – and over the next weeks, the faces of these strangers became the seed of an idea for a book.
For the next three and a half years, Levi hunkered down in a writing cabin near his family home with only pine trees for company. He wrote the first draft entirely longhand, with no deadlines to meet or pestering publishers. It was entirely for his own pleasure. That said, like any writer, professional or not, he faced certain challenges. “I’m writing a book, and it’s making me crazy / I’m writing a book, and I’m losing my mind,” he sang in a humourous video shared to Facebook at the time.
Eventually, Levi finished the manuscript. Proud enough of his accomplishment, he intended to leave it at that. It was only when his college friends encouraged him to take it further that Levi asked his niece Aron Ritchie, a project manager, to help him self-publish. In interviews since, both Ritchie and Levi have discussed how what came next was integral to the book’s success. Instead of reaching out to major outlets or publishing houses, Ritchie looked closer to home for support. She compiled a list of people Levi had encountered over his diverse career and asked for their help in spreading the word among their local church groups, libraries, bookstores and book clubs.
As he won over more readers, Levi would make the effort to meet with these book clubs in person whenever possible. Ritchie told The Washington Post that every few weeks she would put together a list of names for Levi titled “Good souls to connect with” containing details of readers who had personally reached out so that Levi could return the favour.
It was good ol’ grassroots, person-to-person marketing – and it worked. Theo of Golden sold 3,000 copies by the end of 2023. By the end of 2024, that figure climbed to 25,000, with the following year bringing a spike in sales. The first half of 2025 saw Theo of Golden shift 125,000 copies; it was ranked 38 on Amazon’s Top 100 bestseller list in America. Quickly, word got around about this unknown author with a hit on his hands, and publishers started paying attention. Suzanne Gluck, a literary agent at WME who represents authors including Brené Brown and Serena Williams, described it to The Wall Street Journal as “like walking into the woods and discovering a unicorn”.
The heated auction for the rights took place that September, with Atria, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, emerging as the victor in America. They rushed to publish their edition within the month, launching an audio version narrated by The Green Mile actor David Morse before Christmas. In the UK, HarperCollins imprint, Fontana Books, subsequently secured the British rights.
Sales have since skyrocketed, with more than 2.5 million copies sold. Katie Couric selected the novel for her book club, praising the message at its centre. “To have this gentleman who just exuded kindness and compassion was like an antidote to all the tumult and vitriol in the world,” Couric said of Levi to WSJ. Months later, Oprah Winfrey interviewed Levi on her YouTube show. In the UK, the book has been met with more modest success, sitting at a very respectable number 17 on the Amazon bestseller list.
The rights to Theo have been sold in 42 countries, with a follow-up on the way. Levi’s journey has been an author’s dream, a true word-of-mouth phenomenon propelled by the same generosity of spirit and human connection that his novel celebrates. Safe to say, it’s a success story for the books.
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