Synopsis
Published in 1962, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST can be seen as a battle between the conventions of mainstream society and the anarchy of the counterculture. As a satirical critique of repressive authority figures, it pointedly spoke to the concerns of the day. Found guilty of statutory rape, Randall Patrick McMurphy agrees to be committed to a mental institution in order to avoid a work camp. He is placed in a ward overseen by Nurse Ratched, a controlling and abusive woman who quickly pegs the charismatic McMurphy as a trouble-making manipulator. As he fights a vicious game of one-upsmanship with Nurse Ratched, using the other patients as pawns, McMurphy effects some positive changes in the place: the patients not only stage a sit-down strike so they can watch the World Series, they even manage to send themselves on a wacky deep-sea fishing trip. But the desperate struggle between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched continues until they destroy each other. The 1975 film version of the novel won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1989-07-01 | | Edition Description: | Reprint |
| Size | | Length: | 272 pages | | Height: | 7.3 in | | Width: | 4.3 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 7.2 oz |
Publisher's Note
An inmate of a mental institution tries to find the freedom and independence denied him in the outside world.
Industry Reviews
"A work of genuine literary merit. What Mr. Kesey has done in his unusual novel is to transform the plight of a ward of inmates in a mental institution into a glittering parable of good and evil."
New York Times Book Review - Martin Levin (02/04/1962)
"This is an allegory with a difference, the difference being found in the very method of composition, in the bi-tonal technique of terrible realism in conjunction with a profound and searching parable of government and the governed."
Chicago Tribune - Richard A. Jelliffe (02/04/1962)
"[Kesey's] book is a strong, warm story about the nature of human good and evil....[A] roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rule and the invisible Rulers who enforce them."
Time (02/16/1962)
"[A]s a work of fiction, for background, for story, for strong writing that holds harsh humor, anger and compassion, and, most of all, for the creation of Randle P. McMurphy, this is a first novel of special worth."
New York Herald Tribune (1924-1966) - Rose Feld (02/25/1962)
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