While recovering from my recent hip surgery, a wonderful surprise arrived in the mail. It was a book sent to me by my dear friend and fellow law school “Canoe Brother” Bill Parrish. It was not just any book, but truly a life-changing book full of legacy-building lessons—Theo of Golden. I’ve been hearing a lot about this book. Michael Sonnenfeldt, founder of TIGER 21, even announced the book as his number one “tip jar” recommendation at the recent TIGER 21 annual conference. While convalescing, Theo turned out to be my perfect companion. It’s a story of kindness, generosity, and appreciating all the beauty that surrounds us.
The book brings to mind several themes from my writings in this Family Legacy Planning blog, in particular the choices we make in life to help us build a lasting legacy. In Theo’s example, it’s the choice he made to be an agent of generosity. He chose to make “bestowals” of portraits to the strangers who were the subjects of the portraits. In his encounters with those subjects, he described to them what he saw in their faces. He made them feel seen. We all want to feel seen. From an interview with the author Allen Levi, “The book is about the series of choices Theo made in his life that cumulatively made him someone we all aspire to be. My hope is that the story will provoke the reader to live a life of charity and kindness and good deeds, leaving you saying, ‘I want to be more like Theo.’” Beyond his generosity with others, Theo also is a role model for living a life full of meaning and purpose, with gratitude for the gifts of nature, art, and beauty in all forms. As Levi wrote, “He was fully invested in the art of living.”
In watching an interview of Levi by his good friend Ben May, I learned a lot about Levi’s own life journey that led him to writing his first novel as he approached age 70. Hearing his story awakened in me a couple of other themes from my recent posts: (1) periodically reinventing yourself so as not to get stale, and (2) unearthing your encoding for certain talents (like writing), and watering those dormant seeds so they can flower into new discoveries in your later years. Weaving those two themes together, Levi is a poster child for reinventing himself over and over, yielding an amazing outpouring of artistic genius, like Theo of Golden.
I’ll share more of Levi’s story so you can join me in drawing inspiration from it. Being an author is Levi’s fourth career. Before that, he was a lawyer, then a singer-songwriter, then a judge. During the COVID lockdown, he used his free time to explore writing. (I can identify, as the pandemic downtime also propelled me into writing this weekly blog.) He tried his hand at fiction, with some 50 stops and starts, but was always drawn back to it. Ultimately, he produced a manuscript of Theo that he shared with his five closest buddies. Levi’s intention was to lock the manuscript away and just check the box that he could write a book, but his friends wouldn’t have that. They surprised him one night at his home and “insisted, not just encouraged—they were insistent” that he publish it. “We all need people like that in our lives” who recognize our talent and push us to pursue it. Levi’s friends told him four life-changing words: “We believe in you” – words we all need to hear at some point.
Originally self-published, Theo of Golden now tops the New York Times bestseller list, and the rights have been sold in 42 countries. (Pamela Paul, “‘Theo of Golden’ Broke Every Rule in Publishing. It’s an Unprecedented Bestseller.” Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2026.) Acknowledging that his was an unorthodox journey, Levi explained that to believe you can produce a work of art starts with audacity. Similarly, per Winston Churchill’s book Painting as a Pastime, the first quality needed to be a painter is audacity. I heard a speech by Pres. George W. Bush where he said the same thing about his painting. The same is true for writing. Levi elaborates, “It’s an audacious idea that you can write something worth reading. But that’s just a start. After you start, it takes tenacity and perseverance” to get it over the finish line. Audacity, tenacity, perseverance, and on top of that (per author Stephen King), you need a room with a door, and you need to have the will to keep the door to the room closed. I can relate.
Another theme from Theo resonated with me: “There is a mysterious choreography at work in our lives.” That choreography brought people into Theo’s life who became a cherished community of friends. Similarly, there is a mysterious choreography that brought together my community of law school Canoe Brothers, and the chemistry we share bonded us with a magical connection. That connection is what led Bill Parrish to send me Theo of Golden, truly a “golden” gift of friendship. I suggest we all follow Bill’s lead and bestow such golden gifts on people we care about.
I’ll close with one more bit of wisdom from Theo. As I recover from my broken hip, I lamented to my friend Karen Reisman that when I look in the mirror now, I look old. When I expressed reluctance to rejoin the world until I look better, Karen said, “The best makeup you can wear is a smile.” Remarkably, Theo offered the same pearl of wisdom. As Theo looked in the mirror, “His was an undeniably old face, but even to him, it lost decades of age when he smiled. And so he did.”
Thankfully, Levi is now writing a sequel to Theo of Golden. I can hardly wait.
Marvin E. Blum
Marvin Blum's book tip Theo of Golden is chock full of legacy-building lessons from its central character Theo, a role model for kindness and generosity.
Theo of Golden was a “golden” gift of friendship bestowed on Marvin Blum from Bill Parrish, here with wife Margaret, as they host a law school Canoe Brothers’ getaway in their beautiful mountain home.