The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
One of the most essential works on the 1960s counterculture, Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Test 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 out on the "Transcontinental Bus Tour" from the West Coast to New York, all the 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.
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What you might want to know about The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Tom Wolfe rides along with novelist Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters across America in a psychedelic-painted school bus called Furthur, hosting Acid Tests and tangling with the law in the early days of LSD.
Yes. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is Tom Wolfe's 1968 nonfiction account of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, who toured the United States in a psychedelic bus. Wolfe was an embedded journalist for parts of the trip.
Yes. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is one of the foundational works of New Journalism, the 1960s genre that brought literary techniques to nonfiction reporting. Tom Wolfe was its leading practitioner.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was written by Tom Wolfe, published in 1968 by Penguin Random House.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is 432 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a standalone novel by Tom Wolfe, not part of a series.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.