SOURCE: Chidley, Joe. “A War for the Future.” Maclean's 105, no. 36 (7 September 1992): 50.

In the following review, Chidley outlines the plot of Sailor Song, praising the novel's vision and insight.

Ken Kesey has had a long break between novels—28 years. After two successes while he was in his 20s, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) and Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), Kesey went on to become America's itinerant wild man, founding the so-called Merry Pranksters club and touring the United States in a revamped school bus. When journalist Tom Wolfe made that LSD-fuelled trip the subject of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test in 1968, Kesey achieved mythic status on the American literary and counterculture scene. Now, after three decades during which he has tried his hand at screenplays, essays, short stories and children's literature, the Oregon-based author, 56, has finally written that third novel—and it is full of wonders. With Sailor Song...