Ken Kesey (1935-2001) is the author of several works of well-known
fiction and other hard-to-classify material. His debut novel, One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was a critical and commercial sensation that was
followed soon after by his most substantial and ambitious book,
Sometimes a Great Notion. His other books, including Demon Box, Sailor
Song, and two children's books, appeared amidst a life of astounding
influence. He is maybe best known for his role as the charismatic and
proto-hippie leader of the West Coast LSD movement that sparked "The
Sixties," as iconically recounted in Tom Wolfe's The Electric KoolAid
Acid Test. In the introduction to "An Impolite Interview with Ken
Kesey," Paul Krassner writes, "For a man who says he doesn't like to do
interviews, Kesey certainly does a lot of them." What's most surprising
about this statement is not the incongruity between disliking and doing
interviews but the idea that Kesey could possibly have been less than
enthusiastic about being the center of attention. Though after his two
great triumphs writing played a lesser role in Kesey's life, his
interviews reveal a thoughtful and generous artist and citizen, who
sometimes regrets the books that were sacrificed for the sake of his
other pursuits. Interviews trace his arc through success, fame, prison,
farming, and tragedy--the death of his son in a car accident profoundly
altered his life. These conversations make clear Kesey's central place
in American culture and offer his enduring lesson that the freedom
exists to create lives as wildly as can be imagined.
