A fast-paced comic extravaganza and from the author of the runaway bestseller and Governor General’s Award-nominated How Insensitive.

“Noise takes on the kind of high-jinx romantic comedy loved by Hollywood.” — Quill & Quire

Set in the cynical and celebrity-obsessed world of mainstream media, and alternatively in the stultifying conservatism of suburban sprawl, a failed musician and intellectual nerd has become a freelance magazine writer and unwillingly been cast into the role of fashion arbiter. Reluctantly, and only for the money, James Rainer Willing agrees to interview the reclusive nationalist Canadian poet Ludwig Boben for the prestigious American magazine Glitter. Willing’s insanely busy and competitive life provides glimpses into the world of fashion photography, small-press poetry readings, expensive and fashionable restaurants (he is a restaurant critic), ‘lifestyle’ magazines, and a return to the suddenly-quiet life or non-life of ghostly New Munich, Ontario, where Willing revisits his one-time peers, the People Who Stayed Behind.

Bespeak Audio Editions brings Canadian voices to the world with audiobook editions of some of the country’s greatest works of literature, performed by Canadian actors.

Russell Smith was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and grew up in Halifax, Canada. He studied French literature at Queen's, Poitiers and Paris (III). Since 1990 he has lived in Toronto, where he works as a freelance journalist. He has published articles in The Globe and Mail, Details, Travel and Leisure, Toronto Life, Flare, NOW and other journals, and short fiction and poetry in Queen's Quarterly, The Malahat Review, Quarry, the New Quarterly, Carousel, Kairos, Toronto Life and other journals. Russell appears frequently on television and radio as a cultural commentator. In 1995 he won a Gold Medal at the American City And Regional Magazine Awards. Russell Smith is the author of six works of fiction; his first novel, How Insensitive, was short-listed for the Smithbooks/Books In Canada First Novel Award, the Trillium Prize and the Governor General's Award for Fiction. In 2005 he was a juror for the Governor General's Award in Fiction (in English).

Russell Smith's profile page

“The strength of Noise actually rests on the same attention to higher gossip that made How Insensitive so popular. Smith’s characters are thinly veiled from those among us, which makes Smith’s brand of sardonic writing on the hip and jaded appealing to both Toronto’s insiders and those who love to hate the vapidness of it all.” — Quill & Quire

“You don't have to like James Rainer Willing to like Noise, the exuberant lampoon of which he is the over-elegant centrepiece. And a good thing too … Willing is a throwback to the hilariously unsatisfactory heroes and heroines of Kingsley Amis and Evelyn Waugh.” — Saturday Night

“Smith plays to his strengths — a well-tuned ear for speech, a keen eye for absurdity, a wicked aptitude for ridicule.” — Toronto Star

“James Rainer Willing is both drawn to and repelled by the terrible beauty of city women and the charade of city life, and Smith paints trendy Toronto with an accuracy that will have you either cringing or laughing your head off.” — Moe Berg, amazon.ca