Ken kesey new biography of steven grant

He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the s and the hippies of the s. He began writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in after completing a graduate fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University ; the novel was an immediate commercial and critical success when published two years later. After One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was published, Kesey moved to nearby La Honda, California , and began hosting " happenings " with former colleagues from Stanford, bohemian and literary figures including Neal Cassady and other friends, who became collectively known as the Merry Pranksters.

Ken Elton Kesey was born September 17, , to the dairy farmers Fred and Geneva Smith Kesey.

He mentored the Grateful Dead , who were the Acid Tests' house band , and continued to exert a profound influence upon the group throughout their career. Kesey's second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion , was a commercial success that polarized some critics and readers upon its release in An epic account of the vicissitudes of an Oregon logging family that aspired to the modernist grandeur of William Faulkner 's Yoknapatawpha saga, Kesey regarded it as his magnum opus.

In , after being arrested for marijuana possession and faking suicide, Kesey was imprisoned for five months. Shortly thereafter, he returned home to the Willamette Valley and settled in Pleasant Hill, Oregon , where he maintained a secluded, family-oriented lifestyle for the rest of his life. In addition to teaching at the University of Oregon—an experience that culminated in Caverns , a collaborative novel by Kesey and his graduate workshop students under the pseudonym "O.

Levon"—he continued to regularly contribute fiction and reportage to such publications as Esquire , Rolling Stone , Oui , Running , and The Whole Earth Catalog ; various iterations of these pieces were collected in Kesey's Garage Sale and Demon Box Between and , Kesey published six issues of Spit in the Ocean , a literary magazine that featured excerpts from an unfinished novel Seven Prayers by Grandma Whittier , an account of Kesey's grandmother's struggle with Alzheimer's disease and contributions from writers including Margo St.

He graduated from Springfield High School in While attending the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication in neighboring Eugene in , Kesey eloped with his high-school sweetheart, Oregon State College student Norma "Faye" Haxby, whom he had met in seventh grade.

In American writer Ken Kesey (–) rose to prominence when Viking Press published his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Born in , Sunshine was raised by Adams and her stepfather, Jerry Garcia. Kesey had a football scholarship for his first year, but switched to the University of Oregon wrestling team as a better fit for his build. After posting a.