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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test | 
 enlarge | Author: Tom Wolfe
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $9.17
You Save: $6.83 (43%)
New (31) Used (7) from $9.17
Rating:  135 reviews
Sales Rank: 1973
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 031242759X
Dewey Decimal Number: 306
EAN: 9780312427597
ASIN: 031242759X
Publication Date: August 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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
Product Description
"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, and the 1960s.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 130 more reviews...
 Great Book November 21, 2008
I recommend this book to anyone that want an inside look at the start of the hippie revolution.
 Post Jack Kerouac November 19, 2008
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" November 3, 2008
Good book. More in context if you have read "On The Road" by Jack Keruoac first.
Fascinating to contemplate October 24, 2008
"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" is the second totally drug inspired documentary I have read. The first was Hunter Thompson's autobiographical "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." That book, to me, was the scariest ever. Wolfe's, however, fascinated me. The difference I think is clear. Thompson was totally under the influence and control of drugs while covering a law-enforcement convention in Sin City. Wolfe is just an observer, not a user, as he follows Ken Kesey (respected author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Sometimes a Great Notion," and other books) and his band of Merry Pranksters on their cross-country drug-soaked bus journey, to their settlement in the hills of California, their deep association with the Hell's Angel's and Jerry Garcia's Grateful Dead, and concluding with their Electric Kool Aid Acid tests before Kesey's escape to Mexico and eventual return to the states and imprisonment. Where as Albert and Leary were interested in the scientific aspects of LSD, Kesey and his bunch were more involved with the fun of it. It's a long book covering over three years of the mid-1960s and is filled with repeated drug episodes. Yet, Wolfe's almost poetic style keeps the book from being repetitious and moving along with the speed of speed. Almost as fascinating as the story he tells is the style in which he tells it. It is filled with hundreds of various adjectives, most of which I had never seen or heard before, but the sounds of the words alone make their meanings clear. On top of language, Wolfe piles unusual punctuation and capitalization to add to the color and sense of his descriptions. And he thankfully adds an Epilogue at the end of his book to tell how he was able to get into the heads of the Pranksters to give a true accounting of what happened. The epilogue turns what could be construed as fiction into non-fiction. I'm glad I read the book. I'm glad I wasn't along on the trips.
Interesting and well-written July 22, 2008
Tom Wolfe takes us through part of the acid-movement of the 60's with Ken Kesey (author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") and company as they embark on their journey across America to popularize acid. Wolfe writes in a way that sort of makes you feel that you are on acid too. His writing style in this book is very unique and he has an incredible way of describing things which is one thing I really enjoyed. Now I can finally understand what many of those baby-boomers went through!
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