About the Author
KEN KESEY was born in 1935 in Colorado and grew up in Oregon. After graduating from the University of Oregon, he received a Stegner fellowship from Stanford University, where he studied fiction under Wallace Stegner, Malcolm Cowley, and Frank O'Connor. Kesey's first two novels,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and
Sometimes a Great Notion, brought him great literary fame. His other books include
Kesey's Garage Sale, Demon Box, The Further Inquiry, and the novels
Sailor Song (1992) and, with Ken Babbs,
Last Go Round. His children's books include
Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear and
The Sea Lion. Kesey died in 2001.
Fresh Air with TERRY GROSS, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Terry Gross started out in public radio in 1973, at WBFO in Buffalo. Soon after she became producer and host of Fresh Air, then a live, daily show broadcast locally, at WHYY in 1975.
Fresh Air premiered nationally in its current hour-long version in 1987, designed as the lead in to the program
All Things Considered. A recipient of the 2003 Edward R. Murrow award, Terry Gross has been called by the L.A. Times "One of the most thought-provoking interviewers working in the media today."
Kesey renders his own characters exactly as he wrote them, giving perfect nuance to each one. Listeners who haven't seen the film will have little trouble getting into the story as the abridgment does not impact the main plot. An NPR interview with Kesey, included as the second half of the last disc, fleshes out the man behind the semiautobiographical story, with insight into his employment in a mental health facility as well as his experimentation with drugs. Through both the reading and the interview, Kesey is revealed as a deep thinking man with an affinity for many of his book's characters. S.M.M. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
