The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Tom Wolfe

Aug 2008 · Sold by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About this ebook

One of the most essential works on the 1960s counterculture, Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Test ushered in an era of New Journalism.

This is the seminal work on the hippie culture, a report on what it was like to follow along with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters as they launched the "Transcontinental Bus Tour" from the West Coast to New York, all while introducing acid (then legal) to hundreds of like-minded folks, staging impromptu jam sessions, dodging the Feds, and meeting some of the most revolutionary figures of the day.

"An American classic" (Newsweek) that defined a generation. "An astonishing book" (The New York Times Book Review) and an unflinching portrait of Ken Kesey, his Merry Pranksters, LSD, and the psychedelic 1960s.

Ratings and reviews

On tha real this book was badass I mean you would think I don't read books if you saw me in person you'd be like 'that guy's a gang member' , and thats ok cuz I am. But this book had me wishing it never end . My name's Esko from El Monte Flores Gang. Much love and respect for Tom Wolfe. - efe

The book is neat but gets really old. I just wanted to finish it by the second half. Still, I am glad I read; though, I would never recommend it.

The quintessential traveler's guide for the trip we nostalgically take back to the sixties, thanks to Tom Wolfe. A must-read.

About the author

Tom Wolfe (1930-2018) was one of the founders of the New Journalism movement and the author of such contemporary classics as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, as well as the novels The Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, and I Am Charlotte Simmons. As a reporter, he wrote articles for The Washington Post, the New York Herald Tribune, Esquire, and New York magazine, and is credited with coining the term, “The Me Decade.”

Among his many honors, Tom was awarded the National Book Award, the John Dos Passos Award, the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence, the National Humanities Medal, and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

A native of Richmond, Virginia, he earned his B.A. at Washington and Lee University, graduating cum laude, and a Ph.D. in American studies at Yale. He lived in New York City.