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Parth Patel
Professor Hirschberg
American Contemporary Literature
April 24th, 2018
Ken Kesey, an American novelist, essayist, and countercultural figure, was born on
September 17th, 1935 in La Junta, Colorado. He was raised by his dairy farmer parents in
Springfield, Oregon, where he grew to be a star wrestler and football player. He was awarded a
wrestling scholarship to the University of Oregon, where he developed an interest in theater, and
then graduated from in 1957. Kesey married his highschool girlfriend Norma Faye Haxby in
1956. He briefly considered a career as an actor, but moved to Palo Alto, California, having been
awarded a scholarship to a graduate program in writing at Stanford University.
In 1960, Kesey would begin writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which examined
the abuses of the system against the individual. In 1960, Kesey participated as a paid experiment
subject in government studies involving hallucinogenic drugs such as mescaline and LSD, with
these experiences serving as the inspiration for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which was
published and released in 1962. The novel would be adapted into a film in 1975, receiving
critical acclaim and winning Academy Awards for best picture, director, screenplay, actor and
actress. When working on his next novel, Sometimes a Great Notion¸ Kesey would often write
under the influence of LSD, believing that psychedelic drugs were key to individual liberation.
The novel, similar to his first, would focus on questions of individuality and conformity, and was
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a commercial and critical success, being considered one of his finest works and adapted into a
film with Kesey regarding it as his magnum opus.
He would later on move to La Honda, California, where alongside former colleagues,
literary figures and friends, would be known as the Merry Pranksters, and hosted Acid Tests,
which involved the recreational usage of LSD and integrated it with multimedia performances.
This came to end when in 1965, he was arrested and imprisoned for marijuana possession,
afterwards settling down in Pleasant Hill, Oregon living a family-oriented house style and
teaching at the University of Oregon. He would still write, but did not release a novel until 1992,
releasing Sailor Song, and would go on to publish works on the Internet until he died because of
