Literary Giants - Ken Kesey

Kenneth Elton Kesey was born September 17, 1935, in La Junta, Colorado. His parents, Frederick Kesey and Geneva Smith were dairy farmers and had one other son. His best known work was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nestfinished in 1962 and later made into a motion picture with Jack Nicholson playing the lead role of R.P. McMurphy.

In 1946 the family moved to Springfield, Oregon and he attended Springfield High School and the University of Oregon. He was a champion wrestler in high school and college where he set long standing state records. In his junior year of college he eloped with his high school sweetheart and over the years they had three children. Kesey had another child with Carolyn Adams in 1966.

After college Kesey attended the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism. He graduated with a degree in speech and communication in 1957. In 1959 at Stanford University he enrolled in a creative writing program funded by a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship that he was awarded at the School of Journalism.

Kesey volunteered to take part in a drug study that was financed by the CIA and carried out at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital. They studied the effects of psychoactive drugs on people. The drugs included LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, AMT and DMT. He continued to experiment with the drugs even after the study was completed. He wrote detailed accounts of the experiences throughout his use of the drugs. It was his role as a ‘guinea pig’ that inspired him to begin writing the manuscript that would eventually become One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

He worked the night shift at the hospital and spent time talking to the patients. Often, he was under the influence of drugs. He didn’t believe the patients were insane, only that they did not fit the mold as society expected. The book was an immediate success when it was published in 1962. The following year it was adapted into a successful stage play. In 1975 the screen adaptation was completed. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won 5 academy awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Director, and Writing Adapted Screenplay.

During this time Kesey was known for throwing frequent parties and invariably some type of drug would find its way into the punch. Kesey had a run in with the law when he was arrested for possession of marijuana in 1965. He faked a suicide and fled to Mexico. When he returned 8 months later he was arrested and spent 5 months in the San Mateo County Jail. After he was released he returned to the family farm and spent the rest of his life there.

In 1997 Kesey suffered a stroke. He developed Diabetes and then had to have surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his liver in October, 2001. He never recovered from the operation and finally died on November 10, 2001. He was 66 years old.

He wrote several novels, collections of essays, collections of short stories, magazine articles and a couple of plays but none that were as successful as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.