The hospital worker in the early part of the book is Ken Kesey, who will become known as one of America’s greatest writers with the 1962 publication of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In 1959 he was a graduate student at Stanford University and worked as an orderly at Menlo Park Hospital. While there he voluntarily participated in the government sponsored LSD experiments that were part of MKUltra.
Kesey also becomes a significant figure in the 1960’s counter cultural movement. He famously credits the US government for getting him high for years. He went on to famously lead a group of counter-cultural figures known as “The Merry Pranksters.” That group included one Neal Cassady, whom we met in Hunters Point and was the basis for Jack Kerouac’s character of Dean Moriarty in On the Road.
