Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey was a well known American novelist in the 960s. He is well known for writing One Flew Over the
 Cuckoo's Nest. Kesey was also a well-known name for the early hippie movement of the time. Kesey was open with his use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD. He was a strong believer that these mind-altering substances were the key to individual liberation.
Kesey, while attending Stanford University, participated in a study where he was given mind-altering drugs.He also worked in psychiatric wards which is what lead him to eventually write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The novel tells the story of a group of mental patients who are living under the horrible rule of Nurse Ratched who specializes in harshness and the mistreatment of her patients. The story reveals the flaws of the mental health systems of the time. The issues tackled in the novel were very timely as heavy issues such as lobotomies were tackled. Lobotomies we procedures performed on mental health patients with conditions such as schizophrenia. The procedure removed connections of the brain's prefrontal cortex in hopes to treat patients of mental illness. The procedure left patients in a childlike or mindless state or dead in some cases. This type of procedure was finally outlawed in the US in 1967.
After writing Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey wrote Sometimes a Great Notion which was about a family of loggers fora local mill instead of striking unionized workers. Using the money from his novels, Kesey bought a colored bus and drove around with many hippies as they did acid and LCD for more of what they called, "psychedelic enlightenment". They named the bus Furthers and called themselves The Merry Pranksters.