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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Paperback – August 19, 2008

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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.

Print length

432 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Picador
Publication date

August 19, 2008
Dimensions

5.56 x 0.78 x 7.79 inches
ISBN-10

031242759X
ISBN-13

978-0312427597
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Popular Highlights in this book

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Everything in everybody’s life is … significant. And everybody is alert, watching for the meanings. And the vibrations. There is no end of vibrations.
345 Kindle readers highlighted this
All of us have a great deal of our minds locked shut. We’re shut off from our own world. Aand these drugs seem to be the key to open these locked doors.
445 Kindle readers highlighted this
Everybody, everybody everywhere, has his own movie going, his own scenario, and everybody is acting his movie out like mad, only most people don’t know that is what they’re trapped by, their little script.
278 Kindle readers highlighted this

Editorial Reviews

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 Back Cover

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.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador; First edition (August 19, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 031242759X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0312427597
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.56 x 0.78 x 7.79 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #13,284 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #13 in Road Travel Reference
- #53 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences
- #134 in U.S. State & Local History

Customer Reviews:
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Tom Wolfe

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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.

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The Grateful Dad

A Merry Important Book!!!

Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2018

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I thought this was a great book. Getting the inside scoop on this historical piece of history and wild guys and gals that made up The Merry Pranksters was extremely valuable to me personally. After reading many books of both the Beat Generation as well as the Hippie Era including a lot of works focusing on the bands, the signature artists of those times, this book is so important regarding the gap between the Beats and the Hippies. This book isn’t sugar coated too much, so it’s raw, honest and exploratory. Learning in good detail about the Pranksters main/notable people, their ties to society and in contrast, their anti-establishment attitudes and spontaneous actions and unspoken rules, is to say the least entertainingly exciting. These folks were a large part in making the mid to late 60’s what they were. As a Grateful Dead lover/DeadHead, it was more than enthusiastic learning about their late entry in this story, along with some amazing figures of the times including Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Ramrod, Neil Cassidy and of course, Ken Kesey (among many other critical historical persons who all had their part in shaping the counterculture gapping generations). A very quick read, and interesting for me to read about the pioneering psychedelic warriors, how they were “Turned On” and how they spread the message to the masses in such unusual form. The rebels of their time, along with some truly EPIC pranks, parties and perseverance. What I really enjoyed about this book is that it doesn’t highlight a bunch of happy go luck good times. It shows the truly raw side of the bunch. It has some incredibly gloomy details that emerge as a result of being together as a wild “family”, with some eye opening realizations that are important for readers to know. That point being that even in best of times follows the worst of times. There is no light without darkness, “Art is not Eternal”, and a surreal vacation from the normal realm will at some point have you realize that sometimes a normal vacation from the never ending trip is important! So, I found this book to be a fun read, an important piece of literature linking the beats to the hippies, an incredible cast of real life people, and how far some rebels have to go to truly make their mark on society to push what they believe in without resorting to extreme violence.

49 people found this helpful

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ron

hippie pre-history...

Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2018

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i agree with most of the positive reviews here...i'll just add a few notes...

for whatever reason, i had always thought this book was fiction (and i don't read much fiction) - but it isn't - the author (Wolfe) adds his own unique stylistic flourish, but otherwise it's a (mostly) 'straight'-up story..

it's not about the summer-of-love hippie era, but rather what could be considered the immediate 'prequel' to those times...in the movie 'Magic Trip', made from the film Kesey & the Pranksters took on their x-country bus expedition, you get to see the Pranksters, and they look far more preppy/beat than they do hippie, but you also see signs of what was (soon) to come in their wake...

Deadheads may be more than a little shaken to realize how close Tom Wolfe was to the Dead, and yet how amazingly little of them appears in this book - i don't think Wolfe was all that into music, at least not 'Dead' music...

Another pretty-much-non appearance is a little group known as the Beatles, who were very much exploding on the music scene just as many of the events of this book were taking place. There's a chapter where the Pranksters actually go to a Beatles show, but they were apparently mostly unimpressed...Beatlemania not their thing...

One major puzzle (for me) is that this book wasn't written by Ken Kesey - the centerpiece (& financier) of the book's events and himself a true-blue published author. That's not a knock on Wolfe, just a bit of weird...how is it possible that Kesey didn't write this book?

a fun read all the same...

20 people found this helpful

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babazar

As I approach 80 years of age, I have ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2017

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As I approach 80 years of age, I have always wondered about those days and how it came about. This book really sets it all in perspective.
An interesting part of world history

62 people found this helpful

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Bryan DesmondTop Contributor: Dragon Ball Z (TV Show)

I think the best thing to say about this book is that it made me think. Long and hard, sometimes.

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2017

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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I'd been meaning to read this book for years. Like all things of expectation, it wasn't what I thought it would be. What ever is, really?

I struggled early with Wolfe's prose. He came off as incredibly ranty, and needlessly verbose, in a sometimes distracting way. He used a lot of hyphens, ellipses, and strange punctuation. (ex: "the lime:::::light::::::"). After some time however I realized that this wasn't how he writes all the time, but rather an attempt to fit his writing to the subject at hand. At first I thought this was somewhat obnoxious, but as I went on I grew more used to it. And besides getting used to it, there were flashes of genuine brilliance in there as well. I mean, some situations were described with such accuracy, insight, and understanding that I was really blown away. These particular portions of the book were, I'm sure, heavily influenced by interviewing primary sources, but regardless Wolfe penned it well.

I was appreciative of the fact that throughout the book Wolfe didn't focus solely on the positive and made it clear that there were conflicting interests among even the Pranksters. When in situations like this not everything is happy happy joy joy let's eat acid and mellow out. Interests don't ALWAYS run in the same direction, and when you have someone like Kesey (who is basically a lodestone of the psychedelic variety) running the show there are bound to be rifts and doubts between people. This is a natural thing and I'm glad Wolfe addressed it.

I think the best thing to say about this book is that it made me think. Long and hard, sometimes. I found myself reading passages from it and then gazing into the distance in some deep contemplation about anything and everything. The book would spark a thought in me that would turn into a full fledged reflection, maybe even far beyond the points that the book brought up in the first place. Good writing does that I suppose.

I will say that I didn't like the way the book ended. It was somewhat anti-climactic in that it sort of just fizzled and went out. Though, I guess you could say the same thing of the Merry Pranksters. There is allegory in that, like so much else in that long, strange trip to go Furthur. COSMO!

50 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Kerry Marshall

Jam packed with dull trivia - unreadable IMHO

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2020

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Somebody wrote after a 1-star review "well I was there". So was I. As a young Englishman, having just finished University I decided to spend my "last summer of freedom" (before taking up my first 9-5 job) exploring that great mysterious, amazing country called America. It was 1966 and I inevitably ended up on the West Coast and took the wonder drug, with some lovely friends who'd showed up from North Carolina.

Does Wolfe accurately chronicle that zeitgiest, that era? Not really. He writes interminable pages of detail about the goings on in and around the cult of the Merry Pranksters, for whom Ken Kesey was the leader.
Now I have a considerable respect for Kesey as, along with Timothy Leary, he was a leading figure in the LSD revolution, but Wolfe's work I found first of all extremely parochial - he describes one small corner of the acid scene at that time, and not a typical one - in way that is repetitive and BORING. Afler ploughing through a few chapters of this, I gave up looking for substance, and started skimming the rest of the book to see if things changed. It appeared they didn't so, having paid about ten quid for this "famous classic" I decided that my time is too precious to wade through pages of tedious detail, and tossed it in the recycle bin.

If you want a read about that era that is well written, doesn't SMOTHER you with detail, and makes you LAUGH as well, you should read the classic" Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thmpson, who was also "there", but unlike Wolfe speaks from INSIDE the drug experience, and to an excess which none of us "chemical pioneers" would have dared to venture into.

One person found this helpful

Greysuit

Not only a great read but also a great reference work of the era

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 13, 2007

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Where did the saying "You're either on the bus or you're off the bus" come from ?

Who were the real people in Kerouac's On The Road ?

How did The Grateful Dead create such awesome sounds ?

What did the Pranksters think about their meeting with The Hell's Angels ? (Hunter Thompson reported it in his book of the same name - this gives the other side of the same story)

How did The Beatles come up with the idea for their Magical Mystery Tour ?

The answer to these and many more questions about the acid culture of the 60s (when it was a lot safer to pop a tab) can be found in this great read. Highly recommended for anyone who was around at the time and can't remember much about it - also recommended for those who can remember and want a great trip down memory lane.

11 people found this helpful

James O'Brien

Not his best work

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 7, 2021

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Regarded as a classic but I found it tedious from start to finish. Maybe only the title chapter of the book was actually interesting. I’m a huge Tom Wolfe fan but this was one of the most painful reads I’ve had in recent years.

xyz

Only for the Heads!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 2, 2018

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Sex, drugs and The Grateful Dead. It should have been fun and fascinating. I just found the style very hard going. It has some interesting ideas and its probably not Wolfe's fault but the Pranksters come over as a bunch of self indulgent kids playing with shiny (day glo) toys while rolling in the slime. Not my thing perhaps?

One person found this helpful

Davey

The other half of The New Journalism

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 17, 2013

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It is with great appropriatenessnessness that Hunter Thompson, in an S-less state, is mentioned, as the author of "Hell's Angels", as this is the other half of the equation whose solution is "Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas".

A psychedelic splurge of a book, covering the acid-soaked start of the California Counterculture, of a type that the Summer of Love represented an end of, not a beginning. As the half-century approaches, read it and enjoy as the past turns into history - and no, they're not the same thing.

2 people found this helpful

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