Tom Wolfe's - Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

[Indian Boy]

Has anybody read Wolfe's 'Electric Kool-aid Acid Test'? I just started reading it myself. When I read the first ten pages or so I felt like there was a real substantial story beginning. But then the next seventy or so pages seem to lose any sense of story. Without ruining the book for me, can anybody tell me whether this book is worth any more of my time? Or am I just waiting for a story that will never develop?

[PeterL]

It's been a few years since I read it, but I believe that it is more of a collections of descriptive sections than a real story, but there are intertwined pieces of personal histories. It has some excellent historic material that may not be anywhere else. If I run into a copy of it soon, I may reread it.

[Indian Boy]

I agree with you. It's more of a collection of descriptive sections rather than a story. I purposely read the first ten pages before I bought the book, just to ensure that it contained a story. That's what bothers me about this book now. The first ten pages gives the false illusion that there is in fact a developing story. Then the rest of the book is just as you said, descriptive sections, all but barren of any sign of an actual story. If I knew you, I'd give you my book.

[PeterL]

It's too bad that you didn't read what you expected. I think that you should finish reading it. As I recall it, it was OK, even though there wasn't a single story.

[Hank Stamper]

this is one of my favourite books.. I'm not sure what you are looking for in terms of story as it is essentially a work of non-fiction about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and the whole counter-culture movement of the 60s - but there are some great anecdotes in here woven together in Wolfe's idiosyncratic way.. definitely worth sticking with if you have any interest in the 60s and the bohemianism that spread out of Haight-Ashbury and turned a generation onto pot and LSD and alternative living!

[March Hare]

Try Divine Right's Trip by Gurney Norman for a good novel by one of the Merry Pranksters.