KEN KESEY
Ken Kesey, 1935-2001
Ken Kesey passed away on November 10, 2001 at the age of 66, of complications
following surgery for a tumor on his liver.
The following biographical sketch was written by Jason Reott several months
before Kesey's death; it appears on our Beat biography page.
Perhaps Ken Kesey is best known for his work One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a
novel symbolizing the corruption of freedoms in America, but a generation or
more has been influenced more by "Further," the bus on which the Kesey and the
Merry Pranksters traveled the country in search for expansion.
The sixties' flower power and psychedelia are direct descendants of Kesey and
his group. While the government was trying to "lobotomize" its citizenry, Kesey
and the Pranksters sought to liberate and expand them through crystallized
perception and broadened horizons.
As a graduate student at Stanford, Kesey was a volunteer for a government
research group designed to determine the effects of LSD and other psychotropic
drugs, which were legal at the time. Once introduced to the effects of
hallucinogens, Kesey designed parties themed around music and visually
disorienting stimuli, also known as the Acid Tests. Famous participants in these
gatherings were Neal Cassady, Hunter S. Thompson, the Hells Angels, and members
of the Grateful Dead.
Touring the country in 1964, the Merry Pranksters made mischief and introduced
the new, wild lifestyle to the teen culture, and formed what would become a
movement of peace, love and drug use, on a scale never seen before. As driver of
the bus, Neal Cassady took the Merry Pranksters to New York, where Kesey met
Allen Ginsberg (who took immediately to the chaotic bunch) and Timothy Leary (another
LSD legend, who took no interest in the group).
Kesey filmed much of this period, but it was Tom Wolfe who wrote about it in The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, a document of his time spent with the Merry
Pranksters near the end of their ride. Soon, the US Government banned the
substances and the Merry Pranksters became outlaws. Kesey fled to Mexico to
avoid prosecution, and was arrested for possession of marijuana when the gang
returned for another go in 1966.
In addition to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey's works include Sometimes
A Great Notion, the publication of which was the reason for the original cross-country
trip to New York. In retrospect, Kesey is the Golden Gate Bridge connecting the
Beats in City Lights to the Hippies in Haight-Ashbury.
Ken Kesey, 1935-2001
Ken Kesey passed away on November 10, 2001 at the age of 66, of complications
following surgery for a tumor on his liver.
The following biographical sketch was written by Jason Reott several months
before Kesey's death; it appears on our Beat biography page.
Perhaps Ken Kesey is best known for his work One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a
novel symbolizing the corruption of freedoms in America, but a generation or
more has been influenced more by "Further," the bus on which the Kesey and the
Merry Pranksters traveled the country in search for expansion.
The sixties' flower power and psychedelia are direct descendants of Kesey and
his group. While the government was trying to "lobotomize" its citizenry, Kesey
and the Pranksters sought to liberate and expand them through crystallized
perception and broadened horizons.
As a graduate student at Stanford, Kesey was a volunteer for a government
research group designed to determine the effects of LSD and other psychotropic
drugs, which were legal at the time. Once introduced to the effects of
hallucinogens, Kesey designed parties themed around music and visually
disorienting stimuli, also known as the Acid Tests. Famous participants in these
gatherings were Neal Cassady, Hunter S. Thompson, the Hells Angels, and members
of the Grateful Dead.
Touring the country in 1964, the Merry Pranksters made mischief and introduced
the new, wild lifestyle to the teen culture, and formed what would become a
movement of peace, love and drug use, on a scale never seen before. As driver of
the bus, Neal Cassady took the Merry Pranksters to New York, where Kesey met
Allen Ginsberg (who took immediately to the chaotic bunch) and Timothy Leary (another
LSD legend, who took no interest in the group).
Kesey filmed much of this period, but it was Tom Wolfe who wrote about it in The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, a document of his time spent with the Merry
Pranksters near the end of their ride. Soon, the US Government banned the
substances and the Merry Pranksters became outlaws. Kesey fled to Mexico to
avoid prosecution, and was arrested for possession of marijuana when the gang
returned for another go in 1966.
In addition to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey's works include Sometimes
A Great Notion, the publication of which was the reason for the original cross-country
trip to New York. In retrospect, Kesey is the Golden Gate Bridge connecting the
Beats in City Lights to the Hippies in Haight-Ashbury.