About the Book

CHECK IT OUT–
the terrific slideshow feature posted on The Huffington Post!

When Ken Kesey burst on the literary scene in 1962 with his groundbreaking novel, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, and scarcely two years later followed this feat with SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION, his literary future seemed assured. A self-described “Okie” and campus jock—a wrestling champion at the University of Oregon—Kesey had risen to the ranks of Norman Mailer, John Updike and Truman Capote as a literary wunderkind. However, despite such an auspicious beginning, he opted instead to jump off the literary bandwagon in favor of a magic bus: accompanied by his Merry Pranksters, he set off on the free-wheeling drug-fueled cross country road trip that was to become the iconic journey chronicled in Tom Wolfe’s ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST.

Virtually overnight, Ken Kesey traded away a promising literary future to reinvent himself from man of letters to psychedelic superman—a hedonistic guru of the 60’s, who was to become the spokesman and poster boy for the flower-power generation.

Mark Christensen, who was inspired at an early age by Kesey’s literary genius, “awed by his talents, awed more by how he had abandoned many of them, and fascinated by the evolution of his legend,” has searched behind the myth surrounding the “King of the Counterculture” to find out how and why Kesey became a key force “in guiding if not creating one of the greatest mass movements in contemporary history.”

Now, after extensive research and numerous personal interviews Christensen reveals “The Commander” as a far more complex figure than the hippie cheerleader and media darling of the psychedelic era.

Additionally, within the context of the Ken Kesey story, Christensen, who “grew up around the Kesey Chautauqua,” skillfully weaves his own personal vignettes to forge an exhilarating blend of biography and memoir, and candidly and at times hilariously portrays himself as one of the flock who followed the edicts of his paisley-ed hero. His personal trajectory runs parallel and at times converges with that of Kesey and his followers; the result is a sheep’s eye view of the shepherd that is revealing, tragic, funny and honest. As much a multi-dimensional portrait of Kesey himself, as viewed through the prism of Christensen’s personal narrative, ACID CHRIST: Ken Kesey, LSD and the Politics of Ecstasy provides a panoramic look at a generation.