Works by
Ken Kesey
(Aka Kenneth Elton Kesey,
Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, and O.U. Levon)
(Writer)
[September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001]

Children

• The Sea Lion (1991)
  Although taunted for his small size and bad leg, Eemook proves his worth by saving his tribe from an evil and powerful spirit that comes visiting one stormy night.  Ages 4-8.

• Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear  (1990) by Ken Kesey, Barry Moser
  Little Tricker the squirrel watches as Big Double the bear terrorizes the forest animals one by one, but then Little Tricker gets revenge.  Ages 4-8

Essays and Short Stories

• Kesey's Jail Journal (2003)
  Four years after the legendary 1964 bus trip immortalized in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Ken Kesey began serving time in San Mateo County Jail for pot possession. Transferred to an experimental low-security "honor camp" in the redwood forest, he spent six months clearing brush and immersing himself in the life of the jail community, attempting to "bring light and color" to it. "This is crazier here than the nuthouse ever was," Kesey noted, and proceeded to record the scene in numerous notebooks, illustrated with intense and brilliantly colored artwork.
  
  Upon returning to Oregon, Kesey turned the raw notebook material into an illustrated collage that stretched across dozens of 18" x 23" boards. Upon realizing that publication of the elaborate, handwritten book was more than his publisher was willing to attempt, he put it aside. Almost thirty years later he returned to the project and brought it to completion during the final years of his life. Fans of Ken Kesey's singular American voice will rejoice to hear it again in this unique and long-overdue volume. Those unfamiliar with Kesey's artwork are in for a revelation.

• Demon Box (1986)

• Kesey's Garage Sale: Featuring 5 Hot Items with Guest Leftovers -- Paul Krassner, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Hugh Romney (1973)

Novels

• Last Go Round: A Real Western (1994) with Ken Babbs

• Sailor Song (1992)

• Caverns (1990)
  Written under the pseudonym O.U. Levon with his creative writing students.

• Sometimes a Great Notion (1964)
  Following the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls “one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century.” This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers. Out of the Stamper family’s rivalries and betrayals Ken Kesey has crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy.

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)
  Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome powers that keep them all imprisoned.

Screenplays

• The Further Inquiry (1990)

Other

• Kesey (1977), Michael Strelow, ed.
  A collection of notes, manuscripts and drawings By Ken Kesey selected to illustrate the writer's creative process. From the University of Oregon Library Special Collections.

• Genesis West: Volume Five (1963, magazine article)

See also:

• Spit in the Ocean, No. 7: All About Ken Kesey (2003), Ed McClanahan, ed.
  Between 1974 and 1981 Ken Kesey self-published six issues of a literary magazine called Spit in the Ocean. After the revolutionary novelist's death in the fall of 2001, one of his closest friends, acclaimed writer Ed McClanahan, decided to carry out Kesey's vision and put together a final issue of Spit as a tribute to Kesey's genius and imperturbable spirit. Featuring contributions from cultural luminaries-including Bill Walton, Paul Krassner, Robert Stone, Wendell Berry, and Grateful Dead lyricists John Perry Barlow and Robert Hunter and -- as well as "regular folk," and several pieces by Kesey himself, Spit in the Ocean #7 is a loving and fitting homage to the gigantic and unique spirit of the merriest of the Merry Pranksters.

• Acid Dreams (1994) by Bruce Shlain and Martin A. Lee
  Acid Dreams is the complete social history of LSD and the counterculture it helped to define in the sixties. Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain's exhaustively researched and astonishing account-part of it gleaned from secret government files-tells how the CIA became obsessed with LSD as an espionage weapon during the early l950s and launched a massive covert research program, in which countless unwitting citizens were used as guinea pigs. Though the CIA was intent on keeping the drug to itself, it ultimately couldn't prevent it from spreading into the popular culture; here LSD had a profound impact and helped spawn a political and social upheaval that changed the face of America. From the clandestine operations of the government to the escapades of Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg , Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, Timothy Leary, and many others, Acid Dreams provides an important and entertaining account that goes to the heart of a turbulent period in our history.

• On the Bus: The Complete Guide to the Legendary Trip of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and the Birth of the Counterculture (1990) by Ken Babbs and Paul Perry

• Aquarius Revisited: Seven Who Created the Sixties Counterculture That Changed America (1987) by Bruce Vanwyngarden and Peter O. Whitmer
  Includes information on Allen Ginsberg, Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, Norman Mailer, Timothy Leary, Tom Robbins, and William Burroughs

• The Art of Grit: Ken Kesey's Fiction (1982) by M. Gilbert Porter

• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1987) by Ken Kesey
  Tom Wolfe's much-discussed kaleidoscopic non-fiction novel chronicles the tale of novelist Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters. In the 1960s, Kesey led a group of psychedelic sympathizers around the country in a painted bus, presiding over LSD-induced "acid tests" all along the way. Long considered one of the greatest books about the history of the hippies, Wolfe's ability to research like a reporter and simultaneously evoke the hallucinogenic indulgence of the era ensures that this book, written in 1967, will live long in the counter-culture canon of American literature.

• Ken Kesey (1981) by Barry H. Leeds

• Cliffsnotes One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1976) by Thomas R. Holland

• Kesey's Garage SaleFeaturing 5 Hot Items with Guest Leftovers -- Paul Krassner, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Hugh Romney (1973)

• Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1972) by John Taylor Gatto