Tales—features a motley crew of characters: Father Paul, an unbalanced priest; an archaeologist, Dr. Jocelyn Crane; Loach's brother, a museum curator; publisher Rodney Makai and the "Blavatskian Makai sisters"; their African-American driver, Ned; and Juke and Boyle, World War I veterans still suffering the ill effects of mustard gas. The characters spend most of the novel together in a military vehicle making their way to Utah where Loach says the cave is located, and getting caught in various comic misadventures along the way. Composite novel The idea of the composite novel or collaborative fiction was not new. In 1872 Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a book Six of One by Half a Dozen of the Other with five other authors about three mismatched couples searching for their proper mates. A dozen authors, including Henry James, William Dean Howells and Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman collaborated to write The Whole Family, with each author writing from the perspective of a different family member. Another famous composite novel was Naked Came the Stranger, a book written by 24 journalists to be deliberately incoherent but still prove that any novel with sex sells. The work of Kesey and his class departed from previous composite novels by having the thirteen class members and Kesey collaboratively write each sentence. Of the methodology, Alfred Bendixen wrote in The New York Times that "The book shows that a group of apprentice writers can collaborate and produce a highly readable tale in a relatively short period of time. But Caverns also reminds us - sometimes painfully - that the novel requires an individual voice, fully realized characters and a clear sense of time and place." Critical reception Because of Kesey's attachment to the project, the book was widely reviewed in newspapers and magazines. Critics were generally intrigued by the book but ultimately critical of its shortcomings: noting in particular the lack of a coherent voice and a too-large cast of characters. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Bob Sipchen noted, "Caverns is an amusing lark, full of weird characters and goofy plot twists. It was a sufficiently intriguing project to make The Mainstream Media swarm around Kesey again. But no one is calling Caverns literature." Further reading References 1989 American novels Works by Ken Kesey Collaborative novels Fiction set in the 1930s