The only work of long fiction solely written by Kesey after Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), Sailor Song depicts the lives of the residents of Kuinak, a small town in Alaska, thirty years in the future – the 2020s.

He is a novelist of unusual force.Charles Perry of the Los Angeles Times described the book as "a page-turner", and said "Sailor Song is a wild, rollicking novel, a dark and cosmic romp...

"[3] Professor Marvin Gilbert Porter of the University of Missouri said "This novel has energy and exuberance aplenty: wild chase scenes, puns, name games, vaudevillian high jinks, songs, poems, playful literary allusions, zippy satire, and born-again patriotic Fourth of July fireworks.

"[4] Goodreads opined "His baroque humor in top form, Kesey skewers religious cults, organized lodges and land developers as the madcap adventures culminate in the phantasmogorical conclusion on the open seas...

It has... patches of Shakespearian rhetorical intensity, and some great gags (some hideous ones too)... whereas One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey's most celebrated novel, had memorable images...