After One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was published in 1962, Kesey was sued by an employee of the hospital where Kesey had worked prior to publishing his novel. According to the suit, Kesey had slandered a woman he had worked with by making her character a Red Cross nurse in the novel. Because a lawsuit would have been tremendously burdensome, Kesey simply decided to change the passage rather than fight. As a result of the change, the Red Cross Nurse effectively disappeared from the book and was replaced by the character named Public Relation.
The following passages show how the novel changed.
Original Passage:
Papa ... stands there waiting, and when nobody makes a move to say anything to him he commences to laugh. Nobody can tell exactly why he laughs; there's nothing funny going on. But it's not the way the Red Cross woman laughs, it's free and loud and it comes out of his wide grinning mouth and spreads in rings bigger and bigger till it's lapping against the walls all over the ward. Not like that fat, wet Red Cross laugh. This sounds real. I realize all of a sudden it's the first laugh I've heard in years.
Revised Passage:
Papa ... stands there waiting, and when nobody makes a move to say anything to him he commences to laugh. Nobody can tell exactly why he laughs; there's nothing funny going on. But it's not the way that Public Relation laughs, it's free and loud and it comes out of his wide grinning mouth and spreads in rings bigger and bigger till it's lapping against the walls all over the ward. Not like that fat Public Relation laugh. This sounds real. I realize all of a sudden it's the first laugh I've heard in years.
These alterations are very simple: a switch of Public Relation for the Red Cross Nurse, and the removal of the word “wet,” which seems more apt for the original nurse.
As the novel progresses, the changes are more complex:
Original Text:
Ten-thirty the Red Cross lady comes in with the ladies' club, clapping her fat hands at the day-room door. "Oh, let a smile be your umbrella… Isn't it nice, girls? Clean and cheery? This is Miss Ratched. I chose this ward because it's her ward. She's, girls, just like a mother. Not that I mean age, but you girls understand…" She laughs louder and faster than if it was real, like the sharp, nervous laugh some women make at the table round guests they're uncomfortable with. The Red Cross Lady's underclothes are so tight it bloats her face up when she laughs, makes it round and red as the sun that some first-grader painted and put a big smiling face on it. She's a Jew girl and tells lots of Jew jokes to show us it's okay we're not Jews too. She's got funny blond hair and a brown mustache and no eyebrows at all to speak of, so she's drawn curved lines over her eyes to make do. She conducts these tours—serious women in blazer jackets, nodding as she points out how much things have improved over the years. She points out the TV, the big leather chairs, the sanitary drinking fountains; then they all go have coffee in the Nurses' Station. Sometimes she's by herself and she'll just stand in the middle of the day room and clap her hands (you can hear they're wet), clap them two or three times till they stick, then hold them prayerlike together under one of her chins and start spinning. Spin round and around there in the middle of the floor, looking at the TV, the new pictures on the walls, the sanitary drinking fountain: "Oh, everything is so spanking brand new. How nice. How fun-ny!" What she sees that's so funny she don't ever let us in on, and the only thing I can see funny is her spinning round and around out there like a toy—if you push her over she's weighted on the bottom and straightaway rocks back upright. Like a spinning top. She never looks at the men's faces…
Revised:
Ten-thirty Public Relation comes in with a ladies' club following him. He claps his fat hands at the day-room door. "Oh, hello, guys; stiff lip, stiff lip… Look around, girls; isn't it so clean, so bright? This is Miss Ratched. I chose this ward because it's her ward. She's, girls, just like a mother. Not that I mean age, but you girls understand…" Public Relation's shirt collar is so tight it bloats his face up when he laughs, and he's laughing most of the time I don't ever know what at, laughing high and fast like he wishes he could stop but can't do it. And his face bloated up red and round as a balloon with a face painted on it. He got no hair on his face and none on his head to speak of; it looks like he glued some on once but it kept slipping off and getting in his cuffs and his shirt pocket and down his collar. Maybe that's why he keeps his collar so tight, to keep the little pieces of hair out. Maybe that's why he laughs so much, because he isn't able to keep all the pieces out. He conducts these tours — serious women in blazer jackets, nodding to him as he points out how much things have improved over the years. He points out the TV, the big leather chairs, the sanitary drinking fountains; then they all go have coffee in the Nurses' Station. Sometimes he'll be by himself and just stand in the middle of the day room and clap his hands (you can hear they are wet), clap them two or three times till they stick, then hold them prayerlike together under one of his chins and start spinning. Spin round and around there in the middle of the floor, looking wild and frantic at the TV, the new pictures on the walls, the drinking fountain. And laughing. What he sees that's so funny he don't ever let us in on, and the only thing I can see funny is him spinning round and around out there like a rubber toy—if you push him over he's weighted on the bottom and straightaway rocks back upright, goes to spinning again. He never, never looks at the men's faces…
The principles of the characters, then, are the same, but the details vary somewhat. The Red Cross lady is sharpened by mention of her religion and her brown moustache. Public Relation, on the other hand, seems emasculated by his complete lack of hair. Red Cross Nurse, meanwhile, is always somehow wet and seems to breathe a rarified air. Public Relation, on the other hand, is less sharp. Perhaps in the conversion of Red Cross Lady to Public Relation, Kesey muddied the character. The details seem less trenchant.
A final instance comes in the middle of the novel:
Original Passage:
I hear a silly prattle reminds me of someone familiar, and I roll enough to get a look down the other way. It's the plump Red Cross woman Gwen-doe-lin, with the blond hair the patients are always arguing about is it real blond or not. "I say it's brunette," they'll argue. And I say it's true blond; you ever hear of a good Jewish girl bleaching her hair?" "Yeh, but you ever hear of any blonde what had a dark brown moustache?" The first patient shrugs and nods, "Interesting point." Now she's buck naked except for a little white apron with a red cross on the pocket and red rick-rack on the edges. And I see once and for all (the string cuts into her belly clean out of sight and pulls the apron up short) that she's a definite brunette. Dangling from that apron string she's got half a dozen withered objects, tied by the hair like scalps. She's carrying a little pad and a mechanical pencil inlaid with jewels, taking notes on the pain and hell around her, plans to write a funny novel about it all later. There's a clutch of schoolteachers and college girls and the like hurrying after her. They wear blue aprons and their hair in pin curlers. They are listening to the Jew woman give a brief lecture on the tour.
Revised:
I hear a silly prattle reminds me of someone familiar, and I roll enough to get a look down the other way. It's the hairless Public Relation with the bloated face, that the patients are always arguing about why it's bloated. "I'll say he does," they'll argue. "Me, I'll say he doesn't; you ever hear of a guy really who wore one?" "Yeh, but you ever hear of a guy like him before?" The first patient shrugs and nods. "Interesting point." Now he's stripped except for a long undershirt with fancy monograms sewed red on front and back. And I see once and for all (the undershirt rides up his back some as he comes walking past, giving me a peek) that he definitely does wear one, laced so tight it might blow up any second. And dangling from the stays he's got half a dozen withered objects, tied by the hair like scalps. He's carrying a little flask of something that he sips from to keep his throat open for talking, and a camphor hanky he puts in front of his nose from time to time to stop out the stink. There's a clutch of schoolteachers and college girls and the like hurrying after him. They wear blue aprons and their hair in pin curls. They are listening to him give a brief lecture on the tour.
Here again it seems that Kesey was averse to reinventing the character and instead relied on a simple change of the character from female to male with a few required changes in the details. The sexual and religious confrontations are gone. Public Relation seems simply a bloated caricature of grossness.
