Thus begins one of the iconoclastic books of the early baby-boom generation as they came of age in the 1960s, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. Wolfe, known as the father of New Journalism and a leading social commentator through three decades of provocative and insightful writings, will present the William C. Menninger Memorial Lecture at APA’s 2004 annual meeting.

Wolfe will be the featured speaker at APA’s Convocation of Fellows, which will be held Monday, May 3, at 5:30 p.m. in Hall 3E, level 3, Javits Center.

Wolfe is the author of 12 books, including such best sellers as The Right Stuff (for which he won the American Book Award for general nonfiction), Radical Chic, and The Bonfire of the Vanities. His most recent novel, A Man in Full, received both outstanding critical and popular success; it was nominated for the National Book Award four weeks before its publication. "No writer—reporter or novelist—is getting our world on paper better than Tom Wolfe," Newsweek reported at the time.

In his current lecture tour, Wolfe assesses society’s cultural mind-set and examines lessons learned from the recent past, both on the home front and in America’s role as world leader. Wolfe proposes that if the 80s were the decade of "money fever," then Americans are now in the decade of "moral fever" as debate over moral codes and cultural values takes center stage in national and international politics.