Sometimes a Great Notion

London: Methuen, 1966.

First British Edition, published two years after the American first. Publisher's brown boards with the excellent unclipped and unfaded dust-jacket. Without inscriptions or other interior markings. A fine copy. Following the huge success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls "one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century." This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers. Out of the Stamper family's rivalries and betrayals Ken Kesey has crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy. The novel was adapted into a film for television called "Never Give A Inch" directed by Paul Newman who starred alongside Henry Fonda. It was nominated for two Oscars