Critical Essay | Interview by Tom Wolfe with Charlie Reilly

Interview by Tom Wolfe with Charlie Reilly

SOURCE: “Interview: Tom Wolfe,” in On The Bus, Vol. 6, No. 1, Issue 13, Winter 1993–Spring 1994, pp. 226–29.

In the following interview by Reilly, Wolfe discusses the research and the work that went into creating his account of Ken Kesey's travels across America, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was published the very same day as his The Pump House Gang. In one of it's more trenchent reviews, The New York Times said, “Two Books!!!!!!!! HeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeWACK! The Same Day!!!!! TOO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O Freaking Much!” Most recently, Wolfe's novel, Bonfire of the Vanities was made into a major motion picture.

Wolfe's chronicle of the hippie generation in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was an account of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters who took a now legendary psychedelic bus trip from California to New York in 1964. To be “on the bus” meant you were part...
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