Sometimes a Great Notion

Sometimes a Great Notion (1964) is American author Ken Kesey’s second novel. The plot revolves around the Stampers, a family of independent loggers who choose to continue working in opposition to a logging union’s dispute with company leadership. The novel uses an experimental structure, switching between first-person and omniscient narrators and telling the story from the perspectives of multiple characters.

Kesey and his counterculture group, the “Merry Pranksters,” were the precursors to the hippies of the late 1960s. He is most famous for his first novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), which was adapted into a classic film of the same title starring Jack Nicholson. Sometimes a Great Notion was also made into a movie, starring Paul Newman. This guide references the Penguin Classics edition (2006).

Plot Summary

Sometimes a Great Notion opens by describing the rainy landscape of the fictional Wakonda Auga River in Oregon. The Stamper family of loggers lives alongside the river. They are fiercely independent and live by the motto of elder Henry Stamper, “NEVER GIVE A INCH!” (35). The logging industry is suffering because lumber corporations are squeezing out smaller, non-union businesses—like that of the Stampers—as well as larger businesses that union loggers work for.