Caverns (novel)
Caverns is a 1989 novel written collaboratively as an experiment by Ken Kesey and a creative writing class that he taught at the University of Oregon. The cover of the book says it was written by O.U. Levon—the name of this supposed author, spelled backwards, is "novel U.O." (University of Oregon). The full list of authors is: Robert Blucher, Ben Bochner, James Finley, Jeff Forester, Bennett Huffman, Lynn Jeffress, Ken Kesey, Neil Lidstrom, H. Highwater Powers, Jane Sather, Charles Varani, Meredith Wadley, Lidia Yukman and Ken Zimmerman. Background Though still a counterculture icon, by the 1980s Kesey's writing output had slowed significantly. In 1988–89 he agreed to spend a year teaching a creative writing class at the University of Oregon. Kesey decided the best way to teach the course would be for the class of 13 graduate students to actually produce a novel when they assembled, twice a week, at Kesey's home. Lidia Yuknavitch, then known as Lidia Yukman, notes in her memoir The Chronology of Water that she was not actually a graduate student at the time. Kesey laid forth two rules: first, the students could not discuss the plot of the novel with anyone outside of the class;