Detroit's '60s counterculture comes alive in novel by longtime activist Peter Werbe

(Detroit Free Press) Peter Werbe bikes, plays handball, does tai chi and still works for social justice with the same fervor that he had in the 1960s.

Last weekend, the longtime political activist participated in a Detroit demonstration to stop hate aimed at Asian Americans. This weekend, he'll probably be fighting the good fight somehow, somewhere, and he'll be doing it with a spirit of protest that stays, to lift a Bob Dylan lyric, forever young.

Yet, at 80, Werbe isn't sure what is perceived as radical anymore.

"These days, I’m not even sure what it means to be a revolutionary. Sometimes, it might mean you want Medicare for all," he says. According to Werbe, the right wing of American politics so controls the discourse that "someone who wants reforms along the lines that most conservatives in Europe support, like a national health system, are said to be these radical leftists.”

....(snip)....

"Summer on Fire," published by Black & Red Books, is described as a fictionalized memoir in which the characters spend seven weeks living in the counterculture landscape that encompasses the Detroit rebellion's five days of civil unrest, a large anti-Vietnam War march, the Grande Ballroom's regular performances by soon-to-be rock legends, drugs, sex, anarchism, the Black Panther Party, the White Panther Party and even a subplot involving a potential bombing. .............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/arts/2021/03/28/summer-on-fire-novel-peter-werbe-1967-detroit/6981688002/