One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Summary

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Author Kenneth Elton Kesey was born September 17, 1935 in La Junta, Colorado to Geneva and Frederick A. Kesey, who were dairy farmers. He was best known for penning the novels “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” and “Sometimes a Great Notion”, the latter of which, many critics believed to be his magnum opus. The family moved in 1946 to Springfield, Oregon. During his younger years, he spent time swimming, hunting, and fishing. He met Norma “Faye” Haxby while in seventh grade, and would elope with her during college. He attended the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. The couple were married until his death, and had three children together.

He died at the age of 66 in Eugene, Oregon on November 10, 2001 after many health issues that he began having
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Until a shoulder injury ended his career wrestling, he was close to making the Olympic wrestling team.

He took a course in college that was taught by Wallace Stegner (an author), and the first work he produced was a novel that went unproduced, called “ZOO”. It was about the beatniks located in the North Beach community of San Francisco

During the sixties, he was a counterculture hero, and was called the Pied Piper. This is due to the fact that he altered the course of the beat generation and pushed it to the hippie movement. He considered himself a link between these two movements.

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” was made into a movie in the year 1975 that starred Jack Nicholson, and won five Academy Awards (best picture, director- Milos Forman, actor-Nicholson, actress- Louise Fletcher, and adapted screenplay- Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben). It is only the second film to ever win these five Oscars. Overall, he was not pleased with much of the film. He did not like Jack Nicholson's casting as McMurphy and did not like that Chief Broom is not the narrator of the film, like he is in the