The real tension of the book, however, is one of dueling identities and clashing motivations between two sons of the Stamper family. The initial tension provided in the book has to do with the Stampers’ refusal to join a logging strike called by the foresters’ union in the (fictional) town of Wakonda, where the book is set. ‘Gyppo’ in this case refers not to ‘gypsies’ but rather signifies a group of independent loggers not associated with a union or company. At its core, it is a drama about the fortunes and misfortunes of a family of ‘gyppo’ loggers, the Stampers, in rural Oregon in the early 1960s. The author considered it his greatest work, although he’s certainly better known for the shorter novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, doubtless due in no small part due to the excellent adaptation starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher. Sometimes A Great Notion is very much a product of this tension.
Ken Kesey occupies a peculiar space in American fiction a little too young to be counted firmly among the cohort of the Beats but a bit too old fashioned to be truly of and by the Hippie generation.
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