The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

 by Daniel James Brown

Reviewed by Gerti

The subtitle to Daniel James Brown's book "The Boys in the Boat" is "Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics."  Unlike my son, who ruined the ending for me by telling me who won the race (when I was more than 500 pages in!) I will not tell you, although even if you know, the book is still worth reading.  Brown's book is a heart-filled work of fiction that will leave you breathless until the end.  It is much more than a simple sports story!

The heart of the book is the life story of Joe Rantz, who went to the University of Washington and was a member of its storied rowing crew.  Rantz is a character with whom most readers will fall in love.  I certainly did.  He is a young man who had the worst life imaginable.  His mother died when he was young.  Hank, his father, abandoned him, and Joe went to live with a relative.  When his father finally came back to his senses (and his son), he found a second wife, a lady named Thula, who despised Joe.  When she and Hank began to have children of their own, Thula convinces him to move to Seattle, and leave Joe behind.  Alone.  During the depression.  In a half-finished house with little food.  Yes, it is heart-breaking to see how cold-hearted a woman she was!

But Joe never quits.  There was a story called "Unbroken" about another Olympic athlete who had to face inhuman conditions, and Joe is made of the same stuff.  Although abandoned, Joe finds a way to stay alive, feed himself, and works hard enough to send himself to college.  At Washington, it is his ability to survive punishment that makes him great at a sport like rowing.  He also has to endure ridicule of fellow students because he always wears the same sweater.  It is the only one he has.  Can you imagine that?  But Joe does not give up or fee sorry for himself; he just works harder.  And of course, Joe finds himself seated in a boa with other poor but scrappy fellows like himself.  And then he goes to the Olympics with them, against all odds, while the rich-boy rowers stay home.

Rowing itself is another character in the book, and the way Brown describes what it demands of its athletes is epic.  We meet Joe's coach, his crew mates, and spend a lot of time with George Yeoman Pocock, who designs and builds the boat the boys race in.  He was another poor boy with impossibly high standards for himself who made good in the US.  He inspires Joe when he is faltering, and it is quickly evident that he does more for the team than make their boats.

The only part of the book I find distracting is Brown's decision to politicize the Olympics.  Everyone knows Hitler was bad.  Nazis were bad.  We get it.  Brown is at his best when he's talking about the sport and describing the lives of these gifted rowers, not weighing us down with redundant history.  He doesn't use overkill talking about the depression or the dust bowl, but he does with Hitler.  To me, the "Boys in the Boat" are the fascinating part, and Brown would have done better to abandon his political agenda and tell the tales alluded to by his title.