Melanie Jones continues her series The Fifty States of Literature with Oregon and Ken Kesey’s classic novel Sometimes a Great Notion.

Best known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey’s under-recognized Sometimes a Great Notion chronicles the times and misfortunes of the hard-headed Stamper family of Wakonda, Oregon. When union loggers go on strike, the Stamper family’s independent company not only continues production but attempts to make up the difference at the regional logging company, incurring the ire of union organizer Mr. Draeger and the ostracism of the town at large. The history behind this decision, and the politics within it, make up the bulk of Kesey’s novel, exploring this family of stubborn “migrants… a clan of skinny men inclining always towards itchy feet and idiocy [and] toward foolish roaming”. The Stamper obstinacy, illustrated by their family motto “Never Give an Inch”, is combated by a river that both gives life and is the greatest threat to the logging community. Swallowing up everything in its path but the Stamper homestead, patriarch Hank fights the current with an arsenal of broken planks, cables, and sand bags.

Kesey’s greatest strength is his ability to take organic elements of Oregon and apply them to the Stamper history. Leland, Hank’s half-brother and perpetual misfit due to his intelligence and physical weakness, is fascinated with the Darlingtonia, a swamp plant trapped between no-man’s lands: “I stared at the stalk in my hand and it stared blindly back”. And of course, there is the fog, as part of Oregon as the rains accompanying it. “It drapes over the low branches of vine maple like torn remnants of a gossamer gown… eating at the yellow-grained planks with a white soft mouth. There is a quiet hiss, not unpleasant, as of someone pensively sucking”. In capturing both the tensions and the beauty of this fictional town, it’s little wonder that Notion is considered by many critics to be “the quintessential Northwestern novel”.