Author Ken Kesey Dead at Age 66
Reuters Saturday, November 10, 2001; 11:48 AM
EUGENE, Oregon - Ken Kesey, whose 1962 novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" celebrated the challenge to soul-crushing authority and whose drug-infused exploits inspired the hippie movement of the 1960s, died Saturday of complications from liver cancer, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was 66.
"He passed away peacefully in his sleep," said a nursing supervisor at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Oregon. His family was with him when he died, she said.
Kesey won fame both as an exuberant pop impresario who helped launch the consciousness-bending Age of Aquarius and a serious novelist.
His early novels won critical acclaim and cast the struggle against conformity in heroic terms for a generation of readers rebelling against the rigidity of the Eisenhower Era.
In a legendary 1964 trip, Kesey set off across the United States in a psychedelic painted tour bus called "Furthur," throwing parties featuring LSD and holding court over a group called "The Merry Pranksters" whose exploits became the basis for Tom Wolfe's 1968 book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."