John Reed

John Reed
Reed in 2007
Born	February 7, 1969(1969-02-07) TriBeCa, New York City
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Columbia University
Occupation	novelist
Website http://www.johnreed.tv

John Reed (born 1969) is an American novelist. He is the author of four novels: A Still Small Voice (2000), Snowball's Chance (2002) with a preface by Alexander Cockburn, The Whole (2005), and All the World's a Grave: A New Play by William Shakespeare (2008). He is working on his fifth book, currently called Tales of Woe, chronicling true stories of abject misery.

Biography

Born in 1969 in New York City, Reed is the son of artist David Reed.^[1] He attended Hampshire College, and received a Masters in Fine Art in Creative Writing from Columbia University.^[2] He teaches at The New School.

Reed was an early contributor to, and subsequently an editor with, Open City, a New York literary journal published by Robert Bingham, who later founded the book series.

Works

He is affiliated with the New York Press and The Brooklyn Rail. "Americans are extremely sophisticated in terms of narrative forms," said Reed in an interview. "We see it in commercials, we see it on TV, we see it in movies. But the narrative forms we're talking about are three acts, five acts, depending on how you want to look at it. They're all based on a Christian model of sin, suffering, redemption; which is not a large model."^[3]

A Still Small Voice

A Still Small Voice (Delacorte 2000, Delta 2001), Reed’s first novel, is a historical novel based on the life of a girl growing up in Kentucky from 1850-1870.

Snowball's Chance

Wikinews has related news: John Reed on Orwell, God, self-destruction and the future of writing

John Reed discusses politics after 9/11 and Reed's take on Orwell's neoconservativism.

Snowball's Chance (Roof Books 2002/2003), Reed’s second novel was a controversial send-up of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and ended in a cataclysmic attack on the “Twin Mills” (reminiscent of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center). It became an SPD/CLMP bestseller,^[4] and received international reviews. The Boston Globe wrote that Reed was “blaming the victim of terrorism,” while Christopher Hitchens called Reed a “Bin Ladenist". John Strausbaugh reported in The New York Press:

"Snowball's Chance is a pretty vicious parody of Animal Farm. 'My intention is to blast Orwell,' Reed says. 'I’m really doing my best to annihilate him.' He not only shanghais Orwell’s story, but amps up and mocks the writer’s famously flat, didactic style–that fairytailish simplicity that has ensured Animal Farm a place in high school English classes for the last 50 years."

The Daily Telegraph (London) wrote that a fortnight's work would not undo Orwell's legacy. The Orwell estate objected to Reed’s use of Animal Farm. The estate had recently weathered the release and publication of a handwritten list of "crypto-communists" that George Orwell gave to the British Secret Service at the onset of the "Cold War," a phrasing first employed by Orwell. The list of authors, artists and various politically active personages consisted of over one hundred names (the number is often mistakenly put at thirty-seven, which was the number of names previously released by the British Secret Service). Though the list does sport some unpleasant language and descriptions, the overall consequences of the list are debatable. Reed's work was interpreted as anti-Orwell. Throughout 2002/03, The Wind Done Gone (a parody of Gone with the Wind) was engaged in ongoing litigation with the estate of Margaret Mitchell; detractors of Snowball's Chance raised the question of copyright infringement, as was reported in The Age (Australian):

[William] Hamilton [the Orwell estate's legal representative], of London, said: "If it were a straight parody, I would say 'Good on you.' But this book seems to take rather than give." Reed said: "I think that Orwell, were he still alive, would far rather be with me in my hovel than sitting in some corporate office preparing lawsuits."

The Whole, or, Duh Whole

The Whole, Reed’s third novel, parodied MTV and was released in 2005 by MTV Books (Simon & Schuster). The novel described a gigantic hole that appears in the middle of the country, which engulfs four states.

All the World's a Grave

Reed, in a new work, returns to the overhaul of canonical English writers in All the World's a Grave, fall 2008, Penguin Books. The work, subtitled "A New Play by William Shakespeare", is a tragedy in five acts, a "mash-up" constructed of lines drawn from five Shakespeare tragedies and one Shakespeare history; Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo & Juliet and Henry V. The work has received early praise from Actor Sir Ian McKellen and Playwright Richard Foreman. In the "literary trick" (as described by Page Six of The New York Post) Shakespeare's lines are rearranged into a wholly new story, in which Prince Hamlet of Denmark goes to war to claim his bride and the daughter of King Lear, Juliet. Upon a triumphant return home, Hamlet discovers that his mother has murdered his father, and married Macbeth. Visited by his father's ghost, and goaded by the opportunistic Lieutenant Iago, Hamlet is driven mad by the erroneous belief that Juliet is having an affair with General Romeo.^[5]

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Reed (novelist)

• John Reed's website
• All the World's a Grave, book website.
• Kill the beavers!, The Daily Telegraph, November 22, 2002.
• Reed, John. Saint George and the Damn Truth, Moby Lives, Nove,ber 10, 2003.
• Reed, John. The Whole, an excerpt, Brooklyn Rail, January 2005.
• Smith, Dinitia. A Pig Returns to the Farm, Thumbing His Snout at Orwell, The New York Times, November 25, 2002.
• Young, Cathy. Blaming the Victim, Reason.com, December 3, 2002.