Ken Elton Kesey 1935-2001, American novelist and counterculture figure, b. La Junta, Colo.; grad. Univ. of Oregon (1957), Stanford Univ. (1960). While a student he volunteered for a hospital study of mind-altering drugs, substances that were to shape much of his life and work. He also briefly worked as a psychiatric ward attendant, an experience pivotal to the creation of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962; film, 1975), his most famous novel, which details the struggle between rebellious individuality, represented by inmate R. P. McMurphy, and the forces of repression, personified by Nurse... Read more