SOURCE: "An Exploration of Power: Tom Wolfe's Acid Test," in Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Winter 1981-82, pp. 67-84.

In the following essay, Bredahl evaluates the differences between Tom Wolfe and the Merry Pranksters he wrote about in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, noting that the Pranksters's rejection of the physical world as a hindrance to the development of perception, rather than a tool to aid in reaching a higher level of perception, was their downfall.

Tom Wolfe's writing is the most vivid instance of the role of the journalist in American literature, a role that has played a major part in the development of twentieth-century prose fiction. Unfortunately, even Wolfe himself, in his introduction to The New Journalism (1973), seems content to distinguish his work from that of novelists and to look for influences in "examples of non-fiction written by reporters." He does not but...