Final

The 1960s and 1970s can be seen as the birth time of literary journalism. Literary journalism uses literary techniques, which was unheard of at the time. During this time frame the work Tom Wolfe coined “New Journalism” in a 1973 collection of journalism articles he published as The New Journalism. The New Journalism included works by Tom Wolfe himself, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and Gay Talese. The 1960s and 1970s was when literary journalism was most important.

The 1960s and 1970s was a time of drastic change in American culture. African Americans obtained the right to vote. People became concerned about the environment such as pollution and cigarettes. Drugs became more popular and sexual freedom exploded. College campuses across the country demanded desegregation, unrestricted speech, and withdrawal from the war in Vietnam. Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and Gay Talese capture these major ideas in the works.

A significant work by Tom Wolfe is The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which brings the reader along a journey of a bus ride with young adults dabbling in acid that leads to a trip that is not forgotten. The main character Kesey’s travel managed to captivate readers and permitted them to read the book as a fiction piece rather than a news story. The Pranksters see their trips as a breach of their physical worlds and realities. Throughout the book Wolfe focuses on placing the Pranksters and Kesey within the context of their environment. Where Pranksters see ideas, Wolfe sees objects.

Wolfe’s book exposed counterculture norms that would soon spread across the country. Wolfe’s accounts of Kesey and the Pranksters brought their ideologies and drug use to the mainstream. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test undeniably alte...

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...to reporting. Esquire editor Harold Hayes later wrote that “in the Sixties, events seemed to move too swiftly to allow the osmotic process of art to keep abreast, and when we found a good novelist we immediately sough to seduce him with the sweet mysteries of current events.”

Sexually exploration was also a prominent feature of this time frame. Talese explores sexually freedom in his non-fiction work of Thy Neighbor’s Wife. Thy Neighbor’s Wife was first published in 1981. The piece of writing shocked Americans. The book brings to light the fascinating personal odyssey and revealing public reflection on American sexuality, which changed the way Americans looked at themselves and one another. To prepare for writing such a story, Talese had sexually intercourse with his neighbor’s wife for several months at a clothing-optional resort called the Sandstone Retreat.