Died on this day – 10 November 2001

Kenneth Elton Kesey was born on 17 September 1935. He was an American novelist, essayist, and major figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.

Kesey was born in Colorado, and grew up in Springfield, Oregon. He graduatedfrom the University of Oregon in 1957. He began writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1960. The novel was an immediate commercial and critical success when published two years later. During this period Kesey participated in government studies involving hallucinogenic drugs to supplement his income.

Following the publication of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he moved to nearby La Honda, California, and began hosting happenings with former colleagues from Stanford, miscellaneous bohemian and literary figures (most notably Neal Cassady), and other friends collectively known as the Merry Pranksters; these parties, known as Acid Tests, integrated the consumption of LSD with multimedia performances.

In1964 his novel Sometimes a Great Notion was published. An epic account of the vicissitudes of an Oregon logging family was a commercial success that polarized critics and readers upon its release, although Kesey regarded the novel as his magnum opus.[

In 1965, following an arrest for marijuana possession and subsequent faked suicide, Kesey was imprisoned for five months. Shortly thereafter, he returned home and settled in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, where he maintained a secluded, family-oriented lifestyle for the rest of his life.

In 2001 Kesey made a trip to France and visited Montmorillon in a search for the famous cuckoo that nests close to the banks of the river Gartempe. After a friendly visit to The Glass Key bookshop in the Cité de l’Ecrit in Montmorillon Kesey went in search of the nest, but unfortunately fell into the river and drowned. Not such a great notion then.