From Library Journal
This excellent version of Kesey's classic novel does not supplement the fine Recorded Books edition (Audio Reviews, LJ 2/1/93). However, this Blackstone version is a worthy companion, based on the reading skills of narrator Tom Parker. Parker does an exceptional job of bringing to life the characters of Randall Patrick McMurphy, Big Nurse Ratched, Chief Broom, and the others occupying the Oregon mental hospital. He is especially good with Chief Broom, the story's narrator, presenting the chief's state of mind in seeing dark forces behind the nurse's actions plus the changes he undergoes through McMurphy's rebellious, fun-loving nature. Parker's skills and the continuing popularity of this work make this version a required purchase for all collections, even those libraries that have the earlier edition.?Stephen L. Hupp, Univ. of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, PACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
The counterculture embraced this allegory of individualism versus the establishment, which, as a film, gave Jack Nicholson one of his more memorable roles. Cowed by sadistic Nurse Ratched, the inmates of a mental hospital are galvanized by a new patient, the free-spirited McMurphy, who enters a pitched battle of wills with the nurse. Narrator Tom Parker does a workmanlike, if somewhat detached, job; his tone nicely mirrors the iconoclasm in his text but doesn't quite nail the personality of the first-person narrator. Y.R. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"In the early 1960s, fresh out of Stanford's creative writing program, Ken Kesey supported himself by working as an attendant at a psychiatric hospital. It was there that he wrote what became his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which Viking released on February 1, 1962. This hardcover edition, which includes new introductions and more than twenty-five line drawings that Kesey made while composing the novel, commemorates the fortieth anniversary of the publication of this American classic." Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, this is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome power of the Combine. Hailed upon its publication as "a glittering parable of good and evil" (The New York Times Book Review) and "a roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rules and the invisible Rulers who enforce them" (Time), this powerful book is as bracing and insightful today as it was in the 1960s.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Kesey's new introduction to this anniversary edition could very well be the last thing he worked on before shuffling off this mortal coil in 2001. Additionally, 25 sketches he drew while working at a mental institution in the 1950s, the inspiration for the novel, are littered throughout. Critics are divided on the meaning of the book: Is it a tale of good vs. evil, sanity over insanity, or humankind trying to overcome repression amid chaos? Whichever, it is a great read. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile - Yuri Rasovsky

The counterculture embraced this allegory of individualism versus the establishment, which, as a film, gave Jack Nicholson one of his more memorable roles. Cowed by sadistic Nurse Ratched, the inmates of a mental hospital are galvanized by a new patient, the free-spirited McMurphy, who enters a pitched battle of wills with the nurse. Narrator Tom Parker does a workmanlike, if somewhat detached, job; his tone nicely mirrors the iconoclasm in his text but doesn￯﾿ﾽt quite nail the personality of the first-person narrator. Y.R. ￯﾿ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine

AudioFile - Scott Lee DeNier