The Audio Series: Rich Shapero

Our audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.


Today, Rich Shapero reads from the prologue of his book The Hope We Seek. Rich's provocative stories deliver readers to different worlds, where characters struggle with gods of their own devising. His two previous critically acclaimed projects, Too Far and Wild Animus, include book, music and visual art and are also available as multimedia tablet apps and ebooks. Too Far was celebrated as "mystical" and "utterly gorgeous," and Kirkus Reviews noted, "Shapero displays an impressive command of the unconscious." He lives with his wife and daughters in the Santa Cruz Mountains.


Rich and his publisher took our request for an audio byte to the next level, producing this lovely "audio video" with images from the book.. take a listen/look...

The word on The Hope We Seek:

The Hope We Seek fuses Rich Shapero's provocative novel with hypnotic, original music—featuring the vocals of Marissa Nadler—and the Visionary art of Donald Pass. The result is a riveting and fully immersive storytelling experience.

Zachary Knox, a sharpshooter known as "the Bull's-Eye Telepath," heads north in search of gold. On his way he meets Sephy, a magnetic woman on the trail of her lost brother. But on arrival, they find the mining camp is home to a cult. The mine boss, Trevillian, rules the camp like a despotic priest, and at the center of his faith is Hope, an elusive goddess for whom the miners toil, enduring increasingly perilous trials as they pursue her into the depths of the earth.

Zack determines to overthrow Trevillian, guided by Sephy's cryptic directions—until Hope appears and reveals the astonishing future she has in mind for him.

With epic force and seductive allegory, The Hope We Seek transports us to a netherworld of danger and allure—where arduous labor, sustained by unwavering belief, promises an unearthly reward. Rich Shapero once again holds a dark mirror to the passions that drive us, and the extremes to which we go to find meaning in our lives.