this was just great. for those of us who couldn't be there for perry lane, the bus trip, or the acid tests, this is a great account of the time. you don't realize how important kesey was to the movement until you read this. on the bus is really a quick bio of kesey. it helps you to understand how kesey took over where kerouac left off. you really feel as if you know kesey and neal after finishing this book. if you are a bohemian, beat, hippie, or any combination, then this is the book to get.

I bought the book after reading Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test for the third time. I really wanted to know more about what Mountain Girl, Cassidy, Gretchin Fetchin, and Babbs looked like, and scenes from the Trip. What a great book. I would recommend it to anyone who is reading, has read, or will be reading the book, Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test. This would be a great companion as your were reading it, and were exposed to the characters in the book.

Anyone who is a Kesey fan MUST read this book. It is basically the photo album which correlates with Wolfe's Electric Kool-Ade Acid Test. It gives more insight into the minds of the pranksters and others. I highly recommend this book to any who is interested in the counterculture. The book as well as the trip are truly legendary.

this book is an absolute dream for those of us who were not able to join Kesey and the Merry Pranskters first hand. And after reading Electric Koolaid it was nice to hear first hand what went on. I loved this book. ---young but still on the bus

This Ken Kesey story is a mix of truth and fiction. Located in Pendleton, OR in 1911 at the original rodeo or Round Up as it is still called. The main characters are Jonathan Lee Spain, an Indian named Jackson Sundown and a black man named George Fletcher. It is a tightly focused story of a few days in their lives at Pendleton along with a sub plot involving Buffalo Bill Cody and a very strange wrestler named Frank Gotch. The book contains photos from those early days so you know that some of these fellows really lived including on of Spain that continued to rodeo even after he lost a hand in a roping accident.

This one is great fun and uses the mortar of fabrication to hold the rocks of truth in place. It's a quick and easy read and does offer a glimpse of yesterday but be warned it has neither the depth or polish of Kesey's earlier works such as "Sometimes a Great Notion" or "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

I must take issue with Pati Reitenour's complaint that the book was not historically accurate. I'm sure that's true, but that is why it is a "dime western." It is in the tradition of western adventure books published in the 19th century which would take real characters and weave a tall tale from a thread of truth. The point is entertainment, which this book delivers.

If you are looking for a complete and perfect, factual, historical and deathly boring scholarly tome on the first big Pendleton rodeo, this isn't it. What this is, is a great little book that tells a great yarn about some people who may or may not have any resemblance to people that may or may not have been in Pendleton, OR around the time that this book is set.
The characters are vivid and the relationship between them is both ribald & enlightening. The young Spain comes up against the elder Jackson & Fletcher. They show him around their world, a world that they have made a niche in for themselves in, and Spain comes out the other side older & wiser. Kesey points out many of the injustices that faced the Indians and Afro Americans in the new west. Spain learns about strength, weakness and right and wrong is an age where they are still working out what these things mean.
Kesey shows some of the great mastery of language that made him a hero to many readers with Sometimes a Great Notion. There are sections of this book that are as good as any he ever wrote. (As Spain is nodding off to sleep in Jackson's teepee he watches the smoke curl toward the roof, turn into snakes and then into tiny delicate horses he doesn't want to scare away.)
This is a great read. Apparently there are people who have an issue with Kesey for taking people out of history and creating a story from their legends, and having a different interpretation form the accepted legend. Kesey was a storyteller, not a historian. There are great pictures of the real people whose story Kesey has attempted to fictionalize. If you want a fun and light book from a master storyteller, this is a good choice. Don't get hung up with facts, enjoy yourself and buy this book.