Down on the peacock farm

A previously unpublished 1999 interview with Ken Kesey reveals the "big-time generosity folded into gigantic nerve" that fueled the novelist's legend.

By Rob Elder

Nov. 16, 2001 | Ken Kesey was the kind of iconoclast who redefined an entire era, inspiring artists and encouraging other writers -- myself among them. His passing painfully reminds me of a debt I can never repay. I met Kesey when I was a 17-year-old aspiring journalist and high school student, and he was a traveling author, returning to the literary scene after a long hiatus. He had just published "Sailor's Song," his first major work since the death of his son and his first novel in 28 years.

A big, barrel-chested man of intimidating size, Kesey and his wife, Faye, couldn't have been more understanding as I bumbled through my first interview. During that session, he gave me advice that's had a powerful impact on my career. He said, "Do what you love, do it now. Start early. If you want to be a journalist, dig in now. You'll be so far ahead of the crowd later -- it won't matter. You may not end up doing what you thought you'd be doing, but you'll be happy doing it."

Kesey earned my respect later that evening after bypassing an entire room of chi-chi literati -- ditching his own book party to color with the children of patrons in the back room. But Kesey was like that -- big-time generosity folded into gigantic nerve.

When I chose a college, my decision was partially influenced by Kesey, who told me about the University of Oregon and the green splendor of Eugene. He was an alum himself and had just finished teaching a class there. Over my time there, we kept in touch and became friends -- I even archived some of his personal papers and correspondence with the help of Faye.

Before I left Oregon after college in 1999, I made one final visit to Kesey's Pleasant Hill farm. We sat outside at a splintered picnic table, and while we talked about his work, his health and his family, we ate cashews. A gifted, colorful raconteur, Kesey dodged as many questions as he answered and we kept chatting long after I ran out of tape. The article that resulted is published here for the first time.

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The peacocks on Ken Kesey's Oregon farm sound like bawling babies. Their squawking drives Kesey nuts, but not half as much as when they climb on top of his writing sanctuary and pick fights with their reflections in the attic windows.

But it suits the literary renegade, the polychromatic birds somehow fitting in with the psychedelic décor of the place. With Faye, he calls home a fire engine red converted barn in the emerald countryside just outside Eugene, Ore. Kesey's own wardrobe of tie-dyed work shirts and denim overalls make him look like the pit crew for Furthur, his blinding Day-Glo colored bus, the Merry Prankster mobile, nestled in the garage next to his computers and archived journals.

The original bus, the one driven by the amphetamine-fueled "fastest man alive" and Kerouac muse Neal Cassady, celebrates its 35th birthday rusting in a cow pasture. A plastic, science class skeleton wearing sunglasses sits in the driver's seat, much as Cassady no doubt would be, had he not died in Mexico of exposure and drugs decades earlier. Not only was Cassady Kerouac's Dean Moriarty in "On the Road," he could also double for Kesey's own tragic Randall Patrick McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

That book, which launched Kesey's career in 1962, has had its share of attention. His much-ballyhooed fight with the producers of the 1975 movie version of "Cuckoo's Nest," and subsequent refusal to see the Oscar-sweeping film, has received enough ink. But Kesey's career as a counterculture icon began after the 1964 publication of "Sometimes a Great Notion," a sprawling family epic that Kesey contends outshines his freshman novel. That same year, he used his fame and his book advance to fund a trip across America turning people on to LSD (then a legal substance) and encouraging the populace to live life as a work of art. His psychedelic bus with his Merry Pranksters, and ensuing entanglements with the law, cemented Kesey as a true literary outlaw, a legend chronicled by cultural scribe Tom Wolfe in "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

But that was years ago. Time slows you down, even if it doesn't change you. Sitting on his back porch, Kesey reflects on his double anniversaries, his life's work and the friends not there to celebrate it with him. "I'm wiser, and I put more effort into trying to be thoughtful," Kesey says, watching his peacocks run at one another in the yard. "As you get older, you begin to see life itself as being more wonderful, and you're careful not to disturb it."

Kesey, 64, still carries his barrel-chested wrestler's frame with grace, but he no longer sports the papa bear paunch of past years. In the seven years I've known Kesey, this is the best he's ever looked -- trim, strong and healthy. His eyes crackle with electricity as he discusses his plans for the future. Kamikaze hummingbirds swoop past our heads to nearby feeders as he talks about life as performance art.

Next page: "He's gone balls to the wall now on everything we're doing"