Product Description

Tom Wolfe's much-discussed kaleidoscopic non-fiction novel chronicles the tale of novelist Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters. In the 1960s, Kesey led a group of psychedelic sympathizers around the country in a painted bus, presiding over LSD-induced "acid tests" all along the way. Long considered one of the greatest books about the history of the hippies, Wolfe's ability to research like a reporter and simultaneously evoke the hallucinogenic indulgence of the era ensures that this book, written in 1967, will live long in the counter-culture canon of American literature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22570 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-05
• Released on: 1999-10-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Amazon.com Review
They say if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. But, fortunately, Tom Wolfe was there, notebook in hand, politely declining LSD while Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters fomented revolution, turning America on to a dangerously playful way of thinking as their Day-Glo conveyance, Further, made the most influential bus ride since Rosa Parks's. By taking On the Road's hero Neal Cassady as his driver on the cross-country revival tour and drawing on his own training as a magician, Kesey made Further into a bully pulpit, and linked the beat epoch with hippiedom. Paul McCartney's Many Years from Now cites Kesey as a key influence on his trippy Magical Mystery Tour film. Kesey temporarily renounced his literary magic for the cause of "tootling the multitudes"--making a spectacle of himself--and Prankster Robert Stone had to flee Kesey's wild party to get his life's work done. But in those years, Kesey's life was his work, and Wolfe infinitely multiplied the multitudes who got tootled by writing this major literary-journalistic monument to a resonant pop-culture moment.

Kesey's theatrical metamorphosis from the distinguished author of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest to the abominable shaman of the "Acid Test" soirees that launched The Grateful Dead required Wolfe's Day-Glo prose account to endure (though Kesey's own musings in Demon Box are no slouch either). Even now, Wolfe's book gives what Wolfe clearly got from Kesey: a contact high. --Tim Appelo

Review

"Tom Wolfe is a groove and a gas. Everyone should send him money and other fine things. Hats off to Tom Wolfe!"--Terry Southern

"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is not simply the best book on the hippies, it is the essential book . . . the pushing, ballooning heart of the matter . . . Vibrating dazzle!"--The New York Times

"Some consider Mailer our greatest journalist; my candidate is Wolfe."--Studs Terkel, Book Week

"A Day-Glo book, illuminating, merry, surreal!"--The Washington Post

"Electrifying."--San Francisco Chronicle

"An amazing book . . . A book that definitely gives Wolfe the edge on the nonfiction novel."--The Village Voice

"Among journalists, Wolfe is a genuine poet; what makes him so good is his ability to get inside, to not merely describe (although he is a superb reporter), but to get under the skin of a phenomenon and transmit its metabolic rhythm."--Newsweek

From the Publisher
"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is not simply the best book on the hippies, it is the book...the pushing, ballooning heart of the matter...Vibrating dazzle!"
--Eliot Fremont-Smith, The New York Times

"Among journalists, Wolfe is a geniune poet; what makes him so good is his ability to get inside, to not merely describe (although he is a superb reporter), but to get under the skin of a phenomenon and transmit its metabolic rhythm."
--Newsweek

"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is an amazing book...A book that definitely gives Wolfe the edge on the non-fiction novel."
--Village Voice

"A Day-Glo book; illuminating, merry, surreal!"
--The Washington Post

"Some consider Mailer our greatest journalist; my candidate is Wolfe."
--Studs Terkel, BookWeek

"Tom Wolfe is a groove and a gas. Everyone should send him money and other fine things. Hats off to Tom Wolfe!"
--Terry Southern

Customer Reviews

Great Book
I recommend this book to anyone that want an inside look at the start of the hippie revolution.

Post Jack Kerouac
I have really enjoyed many of Jack Kerouac's novels and was looking to explore something along those lines. This all takes place post Kerouac prior to the 'Woodstock' movement in the San Francisco Bay Area/ California. It can be a little difficult at times to read due to the lack of punctuation, but if you read it in a fashion to a person with A.D.D. or on a acid binge (like they were) it makes more sense. A little rambling, but so much fun!!

Good, better if you have read "On The Road First"
Good book. More in context if you have read "On The Road" by Jack Keruoac first.