SOURCE: Goodrich, Chris. “On the Bus with Kesey, Viking and Thunder's Mouth.” Publishers Weekly 237, no. 24 (15 June 1990): 34-5.

In the following essay, Goodrich recounts the circumstances surrounding the publication of Kesey's The Further Inquiry and Paul Perry and Ken Babbs's On the Bus, which both commemorate the Merry Pranksters's transcontinental bus trip in 1964.

The entire country was in for a long, strange trip in 1964 when Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters left for New York City from La Honda, Calif., aboard a psychedelically painted school bus driven by “Cowboy Neal” Cassady and bearing a destination sign reading “Further.” Capturing the legendary event on paper has proved to be an equally odd trip; although Tom Wolfe's best-selling The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (FSG, Bantam; 30-odd printings) described the expedition in some detail, the major participants themselves have had trouble convincing publishers to do a book on the Pranksters. Until now...