The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Book excerpt: A wild, psychedelic, utterly Wolfe-ian romp through the rise of the counterculture movement of the 1960s. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is Tom Wolfe’s seminal portrait of Ken Kesey, one of the most magnetic figures of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, and his band of Merry Pranksters. Along the way, even as he vividly recounts the group’s infamous Acid Tests and the country’s changing attitudes toward psychedelic drugs, Wolfe ropes in a who’s who of the early years of the hippie movement, from the Hells Angels to the Grateful Dead to Allen Ginsberg. Wolfe’s clear, unblinking depiction of the travels, experiments, and exploits of his subjects have made his book the quintessential text in the New Journalism that he was instrumental in creating. Readers will find an unparalleled examination of this pivotal moment in American history. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a prescient, evergreen classic, as groundbreaking now as it was when it first stormed onto the scene and forever changed what we thought nonfiction was capable of.