The antics of five seventh-grade Catholic schoolboys in Chicago in the mid-1960s as they battle their crazed and abusive nuns. The boys refuse to conform and are beaten silly for their independence. In return, they drive their authority-loving nuns insane.
Chicago, mid-1960s. Five seventh-graders, the Disturbers of Room 204 at Our Lady of Grace Catholic School, are a menace to the nuns and to society. The Disturbers refuse to conform, they challenge the nuns’ abusive authority and question idiotic rules at every turn. Of course they are routinely beaten silly by the nuns for their attitude of defiance.
Outside of school, the guys and their pals roam their blue-collar neighborhood at will, having fun and getting into trouble. Disturbers Row is a trip back to a time that no longer exists, a time when it was perfectly acceptable for nuns to beat up children, a time when kids were free to be kids and when they used their imaginations to dream, have fun, break rules and learn and grow. No adults needed, wanted, or even interested.
Join the Disturbers as they drive Sister Mary Zita and the other nuns insane. Join them as they play guns and war, hockey, baseball; as they fight, shoplift, smoke, and have fun while crisscrossing their neighborhood and city. You'll have a blast.
Excerpt
“Disturbers Row!”
The five boys in the classroom’s back row didn’t respond to the two words, which were an order that they leave their seats and walk quietly to the enclosed cloakroom at the room’s front end to get their jackets and sweaters, or “wraps,” as the nun called them. Instead, they sat and laughed amongst themselves, proud of their refusal to obey even the slightest order that the old, wrinkled, angry nun gave them.
“Disturbers Row!” Sister Mary Zita spat out with even more than the usual contempt she had for the five, who were driving her crazy with their lack of respect for her authority. They were brazen and bold, disrupted her classroom to no end and shamed the very idea of what seventh grade, Catholic schoolboys should be. They were challenging her again by refusing to get their wraps for the lunch hour dismissal, and as she half sat on the front edge of her wooden desk at the front of the room, Sister Zita made ready to respond to the challenge by grabbing her fa-vorite weapon off the desk: a four-foot-long, rubber-tipped wood-en pointer.
That Zitabug, as they called her, was getting angrier, made the boys laugh out loud. Those laughs seared her ears. She con-sidered them a direct assault on her role as a representative of God and was even more determined to wipe those taunting smiles off their twelve-and-thirteen-year-old-year-old faces. They stayed in their chairs, reveling in the glory that they knew would soon be theirs.
“Disturbers Row!”
They stayed put and laughed harder. That was enough for Sister Zita. The old nun, pointer in hand, launched herself off the desk and hobbled, half bent over, as best she could, across the wooden floor and past the rows of Room 204’s good kids: the kids who always did their homework, never talked in class and always obeyed her orders, the kids who succumbed to authority’s every effort at control and who made the Disturbers sick.
The five had once sat amongst those annoying, properly be-haved kids, but they could never keep their mouths shut and they couldn’t help but bust out laughing every time Zita gave an order or even spoke. The poor woman couldn’t pronounce “ge-ography,” she called it “gergerphy.” She used silly phrases like “Mister Big Stuff,” and “You are as bold as brass and even bolder than that” to try to embarrass kids who goofed off in class, and she said “D’wuhh?” every time she tried to say “What?” or “What did you say?”
And so, within the first few weeks of classes at Our Lady of Grace grammar school on Chicago’s northwest side, Sister Zita had identified the five—Gary Kolba, Dave Ruchinski, Bob Kurkowski, Richard Bozeman and Dennis Domrzalski—as prob-lem students, put them together in the back row and labeled them “Disturbers” in an attempt to shame them into conformist behavior. The move had the opposite effect. The boys wore the title “Disturber” as a badge of honor and felt it compelled them to be even more disruptive and antagonistic than they already were.
Professional Reviews
Great Read!
If you attended Catholic School as I did this is a must read!
The author, Dennis Domrzalski , attended the same school as I. He’s taken me back to our school & neighborhood so vividly!
Suffice it to say our childhood Nuns weren’t the most pleasant people to be teaching children. His recounting of he & his classmates’ (The Disturbers)
experiences of sin & punishment is funny & irreverent and sad because the punishments we survived are too true.
Available on Amazon !!!--Sue T.
Funny and Wildly Entertaining!
I don't say this often about books, but I was sad when I finished this one. I didn't want it to ever end. I laughed my head off all the way through! It's so damn funny! If you grew up Catholic in the '50s, '60s or '70s, you need to read this book, and this is the only book you need to read! It is so realistic and true to life. No sappy BS here. Often, when the subject comes up, and I tell people that I went to Catholic grade school, I get the same reaction from those who also were raised Catholic: rolling eyes, grimaces, laughs and a torrent of stories about crazy and abusive nuns. No matter where people grew up, if they went to Catholic school, the stories are always the same. Stories of nuns beating and tormenting kids, and of kids pushing back and tormenting the nuns. Lots of non-Catholics don't believe these stories, and many Catholics deny them. But I'm here to tell you, this stuff really happened! When I read about Sr. Zita, I'm taken back to many of the nuns I had, and they were just as mean or even meaner. I love the Disturbers and their antics, their sense of fun and their absolute refusal to conform. They challenged authority and questioned idiotic rules. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? How I wish I had been one of the Disturbers! How I wished I had been as bold and as funny as they were! This book is also a snapshot of a time, mindset and attitude that no longer exists. We kids really were free to be kids by ourselves, without adult interference. There were no such things as playdates, helicopter parents or free-range kids. We were told to just go out and play. And we did! By ourselves! Not everyone will like this book. The good kids who yearned to conform, who slavishly obeyed the nuns and who begged the nuns for gold stars, in other words, the wusses, won't like it. But if you were even mildly rebellious, you will love and celebrate this book! Finally, this is a funny book. The Disturbers and their friends are hilarious!--Viejita
Not Sure I can Stop Laughing!
"I just finished reading the chapter about planning an orgy! I'm not sure I can stop laughing! Anyone who attended Catholic grade school in the 60’s and 70’s should read this. I’m only part way through it, but it is funny, sad, heart wrenching and above all else entertaining!"--Patrick Dee
A naïve councilman and a down-on-her-luck single mom try to save their county’s last stand of forest from greedy developers and a dysfunctional government.
A naïve councilman and a down-on-her-luck single mom try to save their county’s last stand of forest from greedy developers and a dysfunctional government.
