M R Gerbo

POP's M R Gerbo

Brownstown, Michigan near the marshes of Lake Erie, 1968. A year after the Detroit riots. Societal attitudes are changing and the drug culture is emerging, even in this small blue collar town. For fourteen year old Mickey Pervitch it is a time of growth, tragedy, revenge, drugs, murder, and healing with an indifferent father. Loner Mickey begins the summer acknowledging that his dream of playing baseball won't happen again. On a whim, he takes a job as a busboy at POP's where he learns, at a young age, lessons usually reserved for adults. He retreats to his safe place, the marsh, where his father meets him to sort out the heartbreak that drugs have brought to their family and community. Told from Mickey's perspective years later, the story cycles the reader through laughing and crying from one page to the next. It is a deeply touching and personal tale of a father and son coming to terms with each other and the circumstances they are forced to accept.