My Review of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

I'd been meaning to read this for at least a couple of decades. I wished i'd dived in earlier. What a fantastic book. What a fantastic writer Tom Wolfe is. I was always a big fan of Gonzo journlism and Hunter Thompson (who pops up in the book a few times), but was fairly uneducated on New Journalism.

Now my eyes are open.

My bookshelves are filling up with other New Journalism and Tom Wolfe books.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test follows Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. They are of course the stuff of legend and myth in underground culture. Probably in part due to this book. Kesey wrote (how I didn't know this I'm not sure) 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', it was his first novel and became a massive hit as a book, a play and a film. His second book didn't do quite as well.

Kesey had been making money as a drug testing volunteer. One of the drugs they had been testing on him with LSD. He rather liked it.

The book flicks seamlessly between different characters and perspectives. Diving inside seemingly unimportant characters for a few pages before dashing off in another direction. But all the time following Kesey and the Pranksters.

They take a LOT of acid. They come out with a lot of 'far out' ideas. They travel on a bus from one side of America to the other shouting and screaming LSD madness along the way. The language flickers and dives in and out, like a trip. The whole book is one big trip. It grabs you and takes you along for the ride.

Kesey becomes a bit of a folk hero. He gets arrested a few times for smoking weed (Acid is at this point still legal in most States) and goes on the run in Mexico.

El Bandito.

We come along on his paranoid Mexican trip, diving through Jungles from imaginary law enforcement, smoking weed on the beach, taking, of course, more acid. He is joined by the Pranksters and they decide to head back to the US of A.

They have escalated their small ACID gatherings to Acid Tests now and everyone gets a nice mug of special kool aid. These parties are growing in notoriety and spawning a million copycat events.

Kasey is set to talk at a massive anti Vietnam war march and things go a little odd.

As they do at a Beatles concert, surrounded by screaming teens, too odd even for the freaks.

Finally, they have one last chance to smash the system and build something beautiful. A huge Acid Test is booked in, The Grateful Dead are on board, and it's all systems go. Kasey is expected to make some huge announcements after freak worrying comments about 'moving beyond Acid'. It all goes sideways and they end up having a tiny party in their dirty warehouse where they all mumble around confusing everyone.

It was always going to end in an anti-climax. The world is still here. A fascinating journey through and inside of Acid culture as it explodes. An in-depth look at the myths and outlaw legends that can be created if you are the right freak in the right place at the right time with the right chemicals.

Anything is possible, even if it's only inside your 'movie'