"ASTONISHING, ENLIGHTENING, AT TIMES BAFFLING AND EXPLOSIVELY FUNNY": FIRST EDITION OF TOM WOLFE'S ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST
WOLFE, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, (1968). Octavo, original white cloth, original dust jacket.
First edition of Wolfe's "celebration of psychedelia"—a dazzling reinvention of the non-fiction novel.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test "is to the hippie movement what Mailer's Armies of the Night was to the Vietnam protest movement. Wolfe is precisely the right author to chronicle the transformation of Ken Kesey from respected author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to an LSD enthusiast, to the messianic leader of a mystical band of Merry Pranksters, to a fugitive from the FBI, California police and Mexican Federales. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a celebration of psychedelia, of all its sounds and costumes, colors and fantasies… It is an astonishing, enlightening, at times baffling and explosively funny book" (New York Times). "An amazing book…. that definitely gives Wolfe the edge on the non-fiction novel" (Village Voice). With "First Printing, 1968" on copyright page. Dust jacket designed by Milton Glaser. Bookseller's inkstamp and label.
Book clean, dust jacket with shallow wear to spine head and corners. A near-fine copy.