Kesey, born 9/16/1925, bridged the 50’s beats and the 60’s counter culture. He penned the critically-acclaimed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1960). The novel was inspired while working in a veterans hospital, sometimes while taking psychedelics. He became convinced that the patients were not insane but failed to fit conventional ideas of how to act. A movie version with Jack Nicholson won five Oscars. After a second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, Kesey stepped away from writing and became a cultural gadfly and creator of happenings, some which featured the Grateful Dead. Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test chronicles Kesey’s writing career and travels with his merry pranksters.

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