Ken Kesey

American countercultural novelist and essayist.

• Born: September 17, 1935
• Birthplace: La Junta, Colorado
• Died: November 10, 2001
• Place of death: Eugene, Oregon

Biography

Ken Elton Kesey was one of the most important writers of American fiction of the 1960s. He was born in La Junta, Colorado, a small farming town in the plains of that state, to Fred A. Kesey and his wife, Geneva Smith Kesey. In 1946, the family moved to rural Oregon, where Kesey remained for most of his life, except for a few years he spent in California in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1956, Kesey married Faye Haxby, whom he had known since childhood. In 1957, he graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in speech and communication, and in 1960 he completed a two-year creative writing program at Stanford University.

Considerably more influential upon Kesey and his work than his formal education, however, were the writer’s lived experiences. He was an athletic boy and young man, and he seriously participated in wrestling (he almost qualified for the US Olympic team in 1960) and loved outdoor activities of all types. For a time, he tried to become an actor and worked in Hollywood on film sets. Kesey experimented with drugs, particularly psychedelics, and in 1960 he participated in a drug-testing program conducted by the government that helped inform his worldview and writing. He was active in the burgeoning West Coast countercultural scene in the early 1960s, mentoring members of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead, among others. His work in a hospital psychiatric ward (sometimes while under the influence of mind-altering drugs) perhaps proved most influential of all Kesey’s experiences. Finally, his familiarity with the cultures and lands of the Pacific Northwest is well documented in much of his writing.

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey’s first published novel (his first novel, entitled "Zoo," remains unpublished), is his best-known work. The novel was an instant success on college campuses and was acclaimed both by popular reviewers and by the literary establishment. The three main characters of the novel—R. P. McMurphy, Chief Bromden, and Nurse Ratched (Big Nurse)—are not merely memorable characters from fiction but also characterize the turbulence of the 1960s, and they immediately became a part of American popular culture. The novel received much critical attention, in the form of book-length studies, articles, and dissertations. It was later produced as a film that captured all five major Academy Awards in 1975: best picture, best director, best actor, best actress, and best screenplay.

Sometimes a Great Notion, published two years later and detailing the exploits of mountain loggers in Oregon, is in many respects superior to One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Its reception and study lagged behind that of the earlier work, however, primarily because Sometimes a Great Notion was thought by some critics to be too provincial and too long. It was adapted into a film in 1970, starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.

On the surface, Kesey's two major novels are markedly different from each other. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is set in a mental ward in California; Sometimes a Great Notion is set in the great outdoors of western Oregon. The first novel is short, the second long. The characters in the mental ward are readily definable as archetypes, whereas those in the logging community are localized caricatures. The plot of the first work centers on an external conflict; in the second work, the chief dramatic tension is internal to the two main characters, the Stamper brothers. In one book, the meaning is clearly universal; in the other, it is individualized. Yet both Kesey’s novels address the ideas of sanity and insanity, the definition of individuality as determined by sex (in terms of both gender and activity), the use of drugs, and the conflict between the individual and societal institutions.

In the "cuckoo’s nest" (the mental ward of the novel), the patients are classified into three groups: the Acute, the Chronics, and the Vegetables. It is clear that Big Nurse herself is a Chronic, as are the Stamper brothers in Sometimes a Great Notion; there is no distinction between the sane and the insane, and the theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl G. Jung are subordinate to what McMurphy calls the "pecking order." Identity is determined either by sexual activity or by the frustration in its absence. This is the case for Nurse Ratched and Billy in the first novel and for all the Stampers (especially Viv) in the later work. The use of drugs in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is Orwellian and in the second novel it is personalized, but in neither work does Kesey suggest that drugs can solve human dilemmas.

Similarly, the institution in both novels often triumphs over the individual: Big Nurse lobotomizes McMurphy, and the logging company "stamps out" the Stamper brothers. In the struggle between the sexes, women consistently struggle against their social status as secondary, disposable necessities: No one is attracted to Big Nurse, and Vivian Stamper is last seen leaving town on a bus while the two brothers battle with each other and the logging company. In both novels, Kesey reveals a brooding wrath at the inexplicable forces that are stronger than the human beings they rule and that cause all lives to be enmeshed in the most absurd of circumstances. Kesey describes this situation in a fashion that can be described as comic, but there is no humor and little real laughter involved. Yet failed struggles against the system, like McMurphy's rebellion, are portrayed as necessary to inspire others to assert their individuality.

Kesey’s Garage Sale and Demon Box are collections of short stories, journalism, journal entries, poems, and autobiographical ramblings; both can be explained as products of the 1960s. Apart from the novels and these collections, Kesey for many years published little, choosing instead to devote himself to his family and to his farm in Oregon. In the 1990s, Kesey began to write again in the attempt, as he himself explained it, "get back on the bus." The Alaskan novel Sailor Song is a departure from his earlier style, as are the children’s books and the multimedia play with music, Twister. Whatever the critical response to these later works, however, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion are sufficiently remarkable achievements to establish Kesey as a major figure in twentieth century American literature. He died in 2001 from complications following surgery for liver cancer.

Author Works

Long Fiction:

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1962

Sometimes a Great Notion, 1964

Caverns, 1990 (with others; as O. U. Levon)

Sailor Song, 1992

Last Go Round, 1994 (with Ken Babbs)

Drama:

Twister, pr. 1994

Children’s/Young Adult Literature:

Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear, 1990

The Sea Lion: A Story of the Sea Cliff People, 1991

Nonfiction:

The Further Inquiry, 1990

Edited Text:

The Last Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog, 1971 (with Paul Krassner)

Miscellaneous:

Kesey’s Garage Sale, 1973

Demon Box, 1986

Bibliography

Kesey, Ken. "One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest": Text and Criticism. Edited by John C. Pratt. New York: Viking, 1973. Contains the text of the novel, related materials, and a selection of early critical responses to the novel, together with a brief bibliography.

Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. "Ken Kesey, Author of 'Cuckoo's Nest,' Who Defined the Psychedelic Era, Dies at 66." The New York Times, 11 Nov. 2001, www.nytimes.com/2001/11/11/nyregion/ken-kesey-author-of-cuckoo-s-nest-who-defined-the-psychedelic-era-dies-at-66.html. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.

Perry, Paul. On the Bus: The Complete Guide to the Legendary Trip of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and the Birth of the Counter Culture. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 1990. Account of Kesey's activities with the countercultural group the Merry Pranksters, often considered a bridge between the Beats of the 1950s and the Hippies of the 1960s.

Porter, M. Gilbert. The Art of Grit: Ken Kesey’s Fiction. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1982. In this first full-length study of Kesey, Porter penetrates Kesey’s drug-culture image to reveal his accomplishments as an author in the traditional "American mold of optimism and heroism." A highly regarded critical study that offers an astute commentary on Kesey’s fiction.

Searles, George J., ed. A Casebook on Ken Kesey’s "One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest." Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. A collection of critical articles, most originally published in the 1970s. Also includes a MAD magazine satire of the film and a bibliography.

Sherwood, Terry G. "One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the Comic Strip." Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 13, no. 1 (1971): 97-109. Sherwood explores Kesey’s references to popular culture, particularly comic strip materials, which are not just "casual grace notes but clear indications of his artistic stance." Contains some appreciative criticism but faults Kesey for his belief in the escapist world of the comic strip and his oversimplification of moral dilemmas.

Tanner, Stephen L. Ken Kesey. Boston: Twayne, 1983. This study affirms Kesey as a significant writer and a leader of a cultural movement despite his scant output. Presents some biographical details of Kesey’s early years and accomplishments, followed by a critical study of major works. Gives particular attention to One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. Selected bibliography is provided.

Vogler, Thomas A. "Ken Kesey." In Contemporary Novelists, edited by James Vinson. London: St. James Press, 1976. Describes Kesey’s work as "Richly north-western and regional in quality." Presents some critical appraisal of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. Also refers to The Last Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog, for which Kesey wrote numerous reviews and articles.

Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968. A notable work in its own right. Wolfe confers on Kesey the charismatic leadership of a cultural movement. Provides important background information on Kesey, the Merry Pranksters, and the milieu of psychedelic experimentation.

Zubizarreta, John. "The Disparity of Point of View in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest." Literature Film Quarterly 22 (Spring, 1994): 62–69. Contrasts the kinds of comedy produced by film’s realistic third-person point of view and the novel’s surrealistic, highly unreliable, and ironic first-person point of view. Bibliography.