The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown

 

This is the story of the 1936 Olympics and the men who rowed for the United States and brought home the gold medal, putting another arrow in the puffed vanity of Adolph Hitler who had stage managed the entire event to make Germany look good to the world.  These were the nine men who crewed for Washington University during a time when the world was crawling out of the Great Depression.

Daniel Brown has done a masterful job of setting the stage for the climatic race which is the book's focus.  He gives the backstories of the coaches, the English man who came to America and revolutionized the construction of the racing shells.  Washington's greatest rival was the University of California and we hear about this rivalry and how the coaches tried to outdo each other.

But it is mainly the story of the men who rowed.  Chief among them is Joe Rantz who exemplified the stories of the others.  Joe grew up poor, his father unemployed due to the Depression.  His mother died young and when Joe's father remarried, his stepmother didn't care for him, especially once her own children came along.  At age eight, she forced his father to put him out.  Joe was given a spot on the schoolhouse floor to sleep but had to cut firewood and keep the building maintained.  In order to eat, he ate with the miners of the town but had to work in the kitchen.  But he persevered.  He was taken back home for a while, but when the family moved, Joe was once again left behind to make his own way, his stepbrothers and sisters torn away.  He learned to rely on no one, to make his own way in the world.  Unfortunately, that is the exact opposite of what is required in rowing where each man must subsume himself to the group effort.  Joe and the other men learned this lesson and were considered the best rowing team ever seen.

In Berlin, Hitler and his group organizers tried to fix the race.  There were six lanes in the race.  The three inside lanes were calm and easier to row in while the outside lanes were difficult, facing the winds and waves of the lake.  Germany was given the prize position of the first lane, their ally Italy the second and the Swiss third.  The two favorites coming into the race, Great Britain and the United States were given the outside lanes with the United States being assigned the worst lane.  The man who set the stroke for the boat was ill and had collapsed two days before.  But the crew managed to pull together and win the gold.

Daniel James Brown is an American author who specializes in writing nonfiction about historical events.  His research is meticulous and he gives enough background for the reader to emphasize with the subjects of the book without becoming overwhelming.  I read his book earlier about the Donner Party and years later still remember that harrowing event through his research.  Here, once again, he brings this event to life with vivid outlines of the lives of those involved while he sets the historical events of the world in place as the background.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.