Ruckus begins in 1954 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Richard's father runs a grocery store frequented by winos, hookers, and welfare recipients. The Golub's live upstairs until Richard's mom comes into a small inheritance. They move to a residential neighborhood and 12 year old Richard is invited on a hayride. That snowy, moonlit night, while hidden in the straw, a rich girl, Linda Paul, French-kisses Richard, igniting a love affair that will last for years.


Linda's family tries to keep the precocious grocer's son away from their prize possession. Richard is smitten and he won't give up. He also forms lifelong friendships with a 7 kids who teach him to swear, gamble, drink, smoke and have sex. They call themselves The Crazy Eight. Ruckus tracks Richard as he gets bounced from one school after another, rumbles with a Christian gang, endures humiliating summer jobs, and makes a screwball road-trip to Hollywood. Binding all these escapades is Richard's tortured romance with Linda - who, though she periodically allows him to enter her world, she continues to play hard to get.


Ruckus' main character is the city of Worcester itself. Golub depicts the former mill town as decaying yet alive with weirdness, dominating the behavior of its inhabitants. Early on well known writers have compared this non-fiction work to coming-of-age classics such as Goodbye, Columbus and The Catcher in the Rye. Specific to its place and time, Ruckus will nevertheless resonate with anyone who has longed for the unattainable and someone out of reach, rebelled and found brotherhood in a group of outsiders.




Ruckus is an absorbing and affecting memoir of an aspiring son of immigrants who pursued the American dream with chutzpah and has the scars to prove it. Celebrity lawyer Richard Golub tells his raucous tale of his errant youth with relish, humor and disarming candor. -- Nicholas Gage, author of Eleni, A Place for Us, and Greek Fire.