A few weeks ago, I saw Richard St.Ofle read from his book No Wolf (the waygoing compromise) at Luna’s Café on 16th street. St.Ofle had just wrapped up writing and promoting the book, and the reading was a way of, in St.Ofle’s words “celebrating, in advance, the break I’m going to be taking”.

Well, that break didn’t last very long, St.Ofle just announced the release of the accompanying audio book, to what is already an ambitious project that includes a soundtrack by Montreal musician August Hell, and a really cool marketing campaign where readers were encouraged to send in photos of them reading the book.

The audio book was recorded by another notorious Sacramento busy-body, Robby Moncrieff, at the Hangar, and, according to St.Ofle, was recorded on the same microphone Michael Jackson used to record Thriller.

“I don’t know if it’s the same type of microphone, or the actual microphone they used on Thriller, but throughout recording, I’d wonder if Michael Jackson had touched this thing or not – I wondered if his skin cells were still on there or something” he joked, “you can totally hear Michael Jackson deep down in there”.

The audio book accentuates the tangible book in ways you wouldn’t think it would. St.Ofle weaves through the story himself, making the passionate parts even more honestly passionate. Subtle jokes too, peek out from behind the text, and St.Ofle’s delivery is so good.
One of the best things about the book is the fact that you feel like you’ve stolen St.Ofle’s diary as he narrates the painful story about leaving his wife, living as an illegal worker in the Caribbean, and watching his life fall apart. The audio book, instead of being a white-bread reading in a tired voice, adds fire and excitement to a story that was already full of verve.

Between chapters in the book itself, St.Ofle peppered the space with what he calls “spamoscopes”, the text part of spam emails, that are supposed to be read as horoscopes. In the recorded version, St.Ofle has friends read these short interludes into crackly tape-recorders, and on telephone answering machines. “It’s the way spam would probably sound if they were recording it” St.Ofle says.

The audio version of the book can be found, for now on bandcamp (richardsaintofle.bandcamp.com) for a cheap $7, and in the coming weeks, on iTunes. The book itself can be found on Amazon.com, or NoWolfBook.com.

This project is fun, and definitely worth the listen, even if you’ve read the book, but, as they’d say on Reading Rainbow, “don’t take my word for it”.

Disclosure: Nathan Taggart assisted in editing "No Wolf" but was not paid for his work on the book.