Author Ken Kesey Better After Suffering Slight Stroke

Author Ken Kesey was upgraded to fair condition Sunday afternoon at a Eugene hospital, where he was recovering from a slight stroke.

Kesey, 62, was at his home in Pleasant Hill when he suffered the stroke Thursday afternoon during a nap, according to his stepfather, Ed Jolley.

Guests from Los Angeles were scheduled to interview Kesey for a CD-ROM production about his novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” but when Kesey awakened to meet them, he was unable to use his right arm, Jolley said.

Kesey’s guests urged him to seek medical attention and he was driven to Sacred Heart Medical Center, where he was admitted to the intensive care unit. By Sunday afternoon, he was walking around, a nursing supervisor said.

Jolley said Kesey has regained some use of his hand, and tests are under way to determine the extent of damage, if any.

In 1964, Kesey and a group of artists and friends who nicknamed themselves “The Merry Pranksters” made a cross-country bus trip that Tom Wolfe chronicled in his book “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.”

In May, Kesey and some members of that original trip drove another bus to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland for the opening of an exhibit on “The Psychedelic Era 1965-69.”