Kesey, Ken

Kesey, Ken (Elton)

(born Sept. 17, 1935, La Junta, Colo., U.S.—died Nov. 10. 2001, Eugene, Ore.) U.S. writer. He attended Stanford University and later served as an experimental subject and aide in a hospital, an experience that led to his novel One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962; film, 1975), which in the U.S. became one of the most widely read books of the 1960s. It was followed by Sometimes a Great Notion (1964) and several works of nonfiction that detailed Kesey's transformation from novelist to guru of the hippie generation. They recount psychedelic, fancy-free travels on a brightly painted bus with a group of friends, relatives, and fans who called themselves the Merry Pranksters. Their story is recounted in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), itself a minor classic of the era.

---

Kesey, Ken (Elton) (1935–  ) writer; born in La Junta, Colo. He attended the University of Oregon (B.A. 1957), and studied writing at Stanford (1958–59). He volunteered for drug experiments and was a psychiatric attendant for the Veterans Administration Hospital, Menlo Park, Calif. (1961). This experience was directly related to his best-known work, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962). Living and farming in Pleasant Hill, Ore., he was never able to repeat the success of that work, but he retained his image as an inspiration for many young mavericks.