Now featuring an introduction by Geoff Dyer, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is 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 1960s, and his band of Merry Pranksters. Along the way, even as Wolfe vividly recounts the group’s infamous Acid Tests and the country’s changing attitudes toward psychedelic drugs, he 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 New Journalism, which 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.

Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test ushered in an era of New Journalism, "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 1960s.

Author: Tom Wolfe
Introduction: Geoff Dyer
Publisher: Picador
Page Count: 448pp
Size: 5.25 x 8.25
Notes: paperback
Date of Publication: August 27, 2024
ISBN: 978-1250321701