Reviews
I picked up this book to read again over the summer. I got this book in Seattle, in this little used book shop near the UW campus. I guess, when I first read it, in 2019, it had an air of sentiment to it, given where and when and who I found this book with. I remember not being able to put it down, and finishing it being heartbreaking. Ken Kesey and his Merry Prankster, with their day-glo head crazed fantasies, provide an entertaining glimpse into the culture of acid heads. Not hippies, acid heads. While I do find some of Wolfe's writing to be a bit drawn out, It is a great case study of the deterioration of a meaningful counterculture- the faults of acid culture.
Read this first back in 76 or 77 when I was going throygh my first hippy/beat phase (actually I'm still going through that phase!)Read the book more times than I can count must be 30+ - wil no doubt read it again soon.
When rich people (upper middle class intellectual teens with ennui) do drugs, it’s counterculture. When poor people do drugs, it’s an epidemic. Really sick of this double standard.
Pair with On the Road, but I found this the better read.
