The Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was written in 1959 and published in 1962 in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement[3] and deep changes to the way psychology and psychiatry were being approached in America. The 1960s began the controversial movement towards deinstitutionalization,[4][5] an act that would have affected the characters in Kesey's novel. The novel is a direct product of Kesey's time working the graveyard shift as an orderly at a mental health facility in Menlo Park, California.[6] Not only did he speak to the patients and witness the workings of the institution, but he voluntarily took psychoactive drugs, including mescaline and LSD, as part of Project MKUltra.[7]

In addition to his work with Project MKUltra, Kesey experimented