Join us for our next book in the Rubber Banned Book Club!
HOW DOES THE CLUB WORK?
Admission is free. Registration required. There are 2 sessions per book. Professional artists read sections of the book and members discuss.
OCTOBER 28, 2025 (6:30-8:00pm) – in person @ 5627 N Lincoln, Chicago.
NOVEMBER 25, 2025 (6:30-8:00pm CT) – meet via Zoom.
ABOUT ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST
An international bestseller and the basis for the hugely successful film, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one of the defining works of the 1960s.
In this classic novel, Ken Kesey’s hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the world of a mental hospital and takes over. A lusty, life-affirming fighter, McMurphy rallies the other patients around him by challenging the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched. He promotes gambling in the ward, smuggles in wine and women, and openly defies the rules at every turn. But this defiance, which starts as a sport, soon develops into a grim struggle, an all-out war between two relentless opponents: Nurse Ratched, backed by the full power of authority, and McMurphy, who has only his own indomitable will. What happens when Nurse Ratched uses her ultimate weapon against McMurphy provides the story’s shocking climax.
“BRILLIANT!”—Time
“A SMASHING ACHIEVEMENT…A TRULY ORIGINAL NOVEL!”—Mark Schorer
“Mr. Kesey has created a world that is convincing, alive and glowing within its own boundaries…His is a large, robust talent, and he has written a large, robust book.”—Saturday Review
– Penguin Random House
WHY WAS THIS BOOK BANNED IN SOME SCHOOLS & STATES?
This book is one of the most banned books of the 20th century in schools. Those who oppose its inclusion in school libraries claim it ” glorifies criminal activity, has a tendency to corrupt juveniles, and contains descriptions of bestiality, bizarre violence, and torture, dismemberment, death, and human elimination.” Additionally, it is thought to promote “secular humanism”.
ABOUT KEN KESEY
KEN KESEY (born September 17, 1935, La Junta, Colorado, U.S.—died November 10, 2001, Eugene, Oregon) was an American writer who was a prominent figure of the countercultural revolution and the hippie movement of the 1960s. His best-known novel is One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), but he became equally famous for his psychedelic adventures as the leader of a roving band of acolytes and performance artists called the Merry Pranksters.
Kesey’s parents, Fred and Geneva (née Smith) Kesey, were dairy farmers who moved from Colorado to Springfield, Oregon, with their young sons, Ken and Chuck, after World War II. In high school Kesey was a star wrestler, and he excelled in the sport at the University of Oregon, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in speech and communications in 1957. The previous year he married Faye Haxby, his high-school sweetheart, and the couple moved to Los Angeles not long after Kesey graduated from college. While in Los Angeles, Kesey worked on his first novel, End of Autumn, which was never published.
In 1958 Kesey was accepted as a creative writing fellow at Stanford University, where he studied alongside Wendell Berry, Robert Stone, Larry McMurtry, and Peter Beagle. During his two-year fellowship, his wife became pregnant with their first child, and Kesey took a job as an aide at a Veterans Administration hospital in Menlo Park, California. There he was also a paid volunteer experimental subject, taking mind-altering drugs and reporting on their effects.
This experience at the hospital served as background for One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which is set in a mental hospital and offers a powerful critique of psychiatric practices of the time. The book became a classic of modern American literature, although some critics regard the novel’s portrayal of women, particularly the character of the steely Nurse Mildred Ratched, also known as “Big Nurse,” as misogynistic.
Kesey wrote of his travels and LSD-fueled experiences with the Merry Pranksters. The group had traveled throughout the United States in a bus (nicknamed “Furthur” or “Further”) during the 1960s and had conducted psychedelic “acid tests” in San Francisco. Among their contingent was Neal Cassady, the real-life inspiration for the character of Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road (1957), which had been a major influence on Kesey.
In 1967, Kesey fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution for possession of marijuana. He returned to California, served a brief sentence, and then moved to a farm near Eugene, Oregon. Kesey and his wife had three children. He also had a daughter with Carolyn Adams, a Merry Prankster who was known as “Mountain Girl” to the group.
In 1988 Kesey published a children’s book, Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear. With 13 of his graduate students in creative writing at the University of Oregon, he wrote a mystery novel, Caverns (1990), under the joint pseudonym of O.U. Levon, which read backward is “novel U.O. (University of Oregon).” In Sailor Song (1992), a comedy set in an Alaskan fishing village that becomes the backdrop for a Hollywood film, Kesey examined environmental crises and the end of the world. Subsequently, with the collaboration of fellow Merry Prankster Ken Babbs, he wrote a neo-western, Last Go Round (1994).
Kesey died in 2001 from complications after surgery to remove a cancerous tumor on his liver
– Britannica, updated by Rene Ostberg
ABOUT THE READERS
DAWN BACH has been a proud Ensemble member of American Blues Theater since 1993. American Blues credits include acting in 14 productions, most recently Golden Leaf Ragtime Blues and composing music for Toys in the Attic. In addition to working with American Blues, she has appeared on the stages of The Goodman Theatre (A Christmas Carol), Northlight Theatre (Cowgirls; Smoke on the Mountain), Lifeline Theater, Shakespeare Project of Chicago, Bailiwick, Next, Touchstone Theatre, and Buffalo Theatre Ensemble. A long-time student of the late Mary Ann Thebus, Dawn is also a singer and violinist. She received her training from the University of Iowa.
IAN PAUL CUSTER is a proud Ensemble member of American Blues Theater. He’s a Chicago-based actor and musician. American Blues credits include: It’s a Wonderful Life: Live in Chicago! (Jeff Award nomination for Ensemble, Production-midsize, & Short Run); Buddy – The Buddy Holly (Jeff Awards for Ensemble & Musical-midsize); Spitfire Grill; The Columnist (Jeff Award nomination for Production-midsize); Little Shop of Horrors (Jeff Award nomination for Musical-midsize); Yankee Tavern. Additional Chicago credits: Waitress, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (Paramount Theatre); Natasha, Pierre, and The Great Comet of 1812 (Writers Theatre); 33 Variations (Jeff Award– Best Production, Midsize), and To Master the Art (TimeLine Theatre), Annie Bosh is Missing (Steppenwolf Theatre), High Holidays (Goodman Theatre). Ian has also had the pleasure of working with Porchlight Music Theatre, Marriott Theatre, The Lyric Opera, Theatre Wit, A Red Orchid Theatre, MPAACT, and Court Theatre. Regional credits: Hero: The Musical (Asolo Rep Theatre), Cymbeline (Notre Dame Shakespeare), Romeo and Juliet (Cardinal Stage), Peter Pan (360 Entertainment – London, England). Television credits: Somebody Somewhere, APB, Empire, Chicago Fire, and Chicago PD. Ian received his BFA from The Theatre School at DePaul University.
JIM ORTLIEB is a proud Ensemble member of American Blues Theater. American Blues credits include the award-winning performance Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight (Chicago & Paris), One Day Only, Scapin, and Train of Thought. In Chicago Jim has acted at the Steppenwolf, The Goodman, Northlight, Lookingglass, Court, Splinter Theatre Group, Bailiwick Theater, National Jewish Theater, Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, and the Touchstone-Organic theaters. As a member of the Gare St. Lazare Players under the direction of Bob Meyer, Jim worked extensively in Chicago and Europe. Throughout the US, Jim has worked at The Huntington Theater in Boston, La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, The Ford’s Theater in DC, The City Theatre in Pittsburgh, Merrimack Rep in Lowell, Mass, Great Lakes Theater in Cleveland, Weston Playhouse in Vermont, and Waterfront Playhouse in Key West. In Los Angeles Jim acted with Rogue Machine Theatre Company, Boston Court, Circle X, Echo Theatre, and he helped to inaugurate the The Getty Villa indoor theatrical venue in Meryl Friedman’s adaptation of The Wasps and performed in Nicholas Rudall’s Iphigenia At Aulis in the outdoor space.
Jim’s Broadway work includes Of Mice and Men with James Franco, Chris O’Dowd, and Ron Cephas Jones, directed by Anna Shapiro, Aaron Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention with Jimmi Simpson, Stephen Lang, and Hank Azaria, and Guys and Dolls with Oliver Platt and Lauren Graham, directed by Des McAnuff. He toured for two years in the award winning Billy Elliot, the Musical directed by Stephen Daldry. His last musical The Devil Wears Prada in Chicago was directed by Anna Shapiro. Jim performed in 1st National Tour of Billy Elliot, the Musical for two years, and Encore’s Of Thee I Sing at Orchestra Hall in Chicago.
Jim has appeared in the films Magnolia, Home Alone, A Mighty Wind, L’amico D’invanzia, Crazy As Hell, Latter Days, Say Uncle, Dirty, The Onion Movie, Contagion, The Crash, Inheritance, The Desert, Drunkboat, Next Exit, and Flatliners. Some of Jim’s television credits include American Horror Story, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Station 19, 9-1-1 Lone Star, Chicago Med, The Rookie, Chicago Justice, Masters of Sex, Vegas, American Body Shop, Boston Legal, The CSI’s, Bones, How to Get Away With Murder, Grey’s Anatomy, The West Wing, The Closer, Roswell, Six Feet Under, and The Shield.