Fun factoid: Novelist Robert Stone was one of the Merry Pranksters on Ken Kesey’s legendary magic bus — Further — driven by the era-straddling Beat & Hippie icon Neal Cassady. Kesey’s mobile universe, fueled by pitchers of LSD and peppered by Flower Power walk-ons from Owsley to Jerry Garcia, is described with day-glo delectation by the American institution known as Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Wolfe didn’t inhale. But his natty detachment from the Merry Pranksters only intensifies his vivid voyeur’s delight. Being as out-of-his-head as they were would have made things redundant. On the natch, Wolfe’s prose pops with a brain-melting swirl of detail and spot-on dialogue that perfectly complements the ride — and defines New Journalism. Back then, you were either on the bus or off. Wolfe writes like he installed the seats.
