Kesey, << KEE zee, >> Ken (1935-2001), an American author, became known for two novels, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) and Sometimes a Great Notion (1964). The novels and Kesey’s lifestyle made him a prominent representative of the West Coast “hippie” counterculture of the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Kesey worked in a psychiatric ward in a Veterans Administration hospital in California in 1961. His experiences there form the background for One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The novel pits the individualism and exuberance of a patient named Randle Patrick McMurphy against the repressive and conformist authority of the hospital’s Nurse Ratched. The complex novel has become especially popular with young people.
Kesey set Sometimes a Great Notion in an Oregon logging camp. The story centers on a conflict between fiercely independent loggers and their company-controlled union.
Ken Elton Kesey was born on Sept. 17, 1935, in La Junta, Colorado. He graduated from the University of Oregon in 1957 and enrolled in the Stanford University creative writing program from 1958 to 1961. During that time, he was active in the local “hippie” movement that included experimenting with drugs and interest in Asian religions. During the 1960’s, Kesey traveled throughout the United States on a bus with a group called the Merry Pranksters. The group became celebrated as the subject of the American author Tom Wolfe’s famous book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968).
Kesey included interviews, articles, and a screenplay in Kesey’s Garage Sale (1973). Some of his essays, poetry, and stories were collected in Demon Box (1986). Kesey’s novel Sailor Song (1992) is set in the near future in an Alaskan fishing village during a time when the world is suffering from multiple environmental disasters. Another novel, Last Go Round (1994), is set in the American West about 1911. Kesey also wrote two children’s books, Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear (1988) and The Sea Lion (1991). He died on Nov. 10, 2001.
See also One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
