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Content snapshot
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Violence
Barely any
No significant violence
Language
Some
Moderate adult language; Wolfe's immersive New Journalism style
Sexual Content
Barely any
Some sexual content in the counterculture setting
Substance Use
Very heavy
LSD and other psychedelics are the book's central subject; depicted extensively and approvingly
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The psychological disorientation of the psychedelic experience captured in prose; the communal altered-state is the book's world
What this book is about
Tom Wolfe's landmark New Journalism account of Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters, and the birth of the 1960s counterculture follows the group's cross-country bus trip and the experiments with LSD that would define an era. The psychedelic experience is central and is depicted with Wolfe's characteristic immersive prose.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Heavy and extensive drug use throughout—this is the subject of the book
Adults only
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