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Demon Box is Kesey at his most intimate. He shows us his fears, his failures, the same stubborn strength that brought down his famous strongman McMurphy, that floated Hank Stamper down the river, and that, in this book, chases our hero Devlin Deboree through a variety of autobiographical essays and short stories.

One thing is undeniable - Kesey can write. His prose is sharp as ever, dense, effective, and brimming with style. Crystal clear, character defining dialogue and HD quality descriptions build a world that feels... almost tangible. I won't go on too much about the quality of writing, because that's not what makes this book stand out against Kesey's other works.

To compare this book to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or Sometimes a Great Notion is a mistake. This is not a story. These are fragments of life, of an icon far past his glory days. Each story on its own is fantastic, but this collection really only shines with some context. I would highly suggest reading Keseys earlier novels, as well as Tom Wolfes The Elektric Kool Aid Acid Test, before this collection. Without the context, this would read like a well written, albeit perhaps unorganized book of magazine articles and essays, but with some notion of what Kesey meant for the decade he found his fame in, this book reads almost like a manifesto. There is such an underlying sense of nostalgia. A reminiscence for a time long gone, that decade of love, when Oneness was just a moment away... Demon box was published in the 80s, a time when Unity between People seemed less attainable than... well, I don't know... a black man in the White House?

My point is, even though this at times feels like an obituary for the blind optimism of the 1960s, that same hopefulness always creeps its way back into the mix. An Egyptian man's hope to educate his child, despite his country's disarray. The flashing faces Kesey finds in the bottom of a wine jug. A legally blind girl's immunity to entropy. A hope which lies in our legends, our Neal Cassidys, our John Lennons, Ken Kesey himself, in America, and all her hard headed, soft spoken, perfectly flawed characters which cover those amber waves of grain....

In Short: First get on the bus, then open up Keseys Demon Box...