If you were alive and paying attention to the world in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as I was, you had to have loved Abbie Hoffman. Abbie was the true avatar of the American cultural revolution, the man who stole the spotlight from Jerry Rubin (who then quit the Yippies, became a Yuppie, and went to Wall Street). Abbie was also better known and more beloved than Tom Hayden, who is remembered today, if at all, as Jane Fonda’s husband. For years, fans have tried to mimic Abbie and have invariably failed. I have never known anyone who could match his genius for guerrilla theater, the “put on” and satire. Back in the day, I was an assistant professor of English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and living a double life that I dug.

Now, more than three decades after he committed suicide in 1989 at the age of 52 — by drinking enough alcohol and swallowing enough pills to kill an elephant — …