Snowball’s Chance

George Orwell’s Animal Farm told a wry and sardonic fable of communism in a dystopic collective farm. Snowball’s Chance parodies Orwell by firing a broadside at the casino economy and the culture of the good life. In a brilliantly conceived and executed riposte to the marketplace’s unthinking cheerleaders, Reed’s Snowball, the Pig ousted from the Animal Farm for rationality, returns to bring marketeering to the farm. Snowball’s Chance is a wildly scathing, landmark novel by New York author John Reed. Written in lower Manhattan, near Ground Zero, in the three weeks following September 11, Reed’s story is surprisingly populated, not by Americans and Islamists, but by a motley array of farm and woodland animals who act out American history and its fallout. Reed’s novel addresses the events of last year concisely and precisely to target the follies of today’s entrepreneurs and religionists alike.

John Reed is author of numerous novels, including: A Still Small Voice, The Whole, A Still Small Voice, Snowball’s Chance with a preface by Alexander Cockburn (Roof Books), The Whole, and A&ITales of Woe. Reed has published in numerous publications and online publications and many other venues; included in 2015’s Best American Essays.