The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a 1968 nonfiction book by American author Tom Wolfe about Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, a group that spearheaded the counterculture’s interest in psychedelic drugs. Kesey and the Merry Pranksters traveled across the country in a colorfully painted school bus and began hosting Acid Tests—parties centered around LSD, live rock music, and lighting. As the book progresses, Kesey, who was an author and celebrity, grows increasingly paranoid and is hunted by police and the FBI in both the USA and Mexico. The book is an important work of New Journalism, a style that arose in the 1960s and 1970s blurring the distinction between fiction and nonfiction. This study guide is based on the first edition of the book.

Kesey was a star athlete growing up in Oregon, and he studied in a graduate program in creative writing at Stanford University in the late 1950s. While there, he becomes part of a lively and bohemian intellectual circle. He also takes part in clinical experiments with psychotomimetic drugs—drugs thought to mimic the effects of psychosis.