Few books about overcoming impossible odds have been as fascinating and thrilling as this one – The Boys in the Boat has been described as “Chariots of Fire, with oars”. At its heart it is a David-and-Goliath struggle about a team of poor boys from a cold northern corner of the US who took on the might of the Third Reich in 1936 to vie for Olympic rowing gold.
It is easily the most affecting “sports” book I’ve ever read, but it is much more than that. It’s an interrogation into what makes champions despite insurmountable odds, what motivates hundreds of thousands of onlookers – most of whom had never been on a boat, let alone rowed one – to turn out in awful weather to cheer them on, and how to endure incredible hardship.
Further, it is a sensitive history of the years of the Depression when families struggled to just survive, let alone achieve greatness, as well as the rise of Fascism and the highly-choreographed Berlin Olympics, designed to be Hitler’s triumphant valediction. Except for Jesse Owens. Except for the boys in the boat.
In Olympic year, it should captivate a wide audience.
Few of us understand how hard it is to row competitively. It may be the most brutal sport there is. Sports journalist Royal Brougham of Seattle (who accompanied this US team to the Olympics) wrote: “There’s no place to stop and get a satisfying drink of water or a lungful of cool, invigorating air. You just row until they tell you it’s all over. Neighbour, it’s no game for a softy.” By the time a race is done, every muscle and cell is screaming with pain.
These particular “boys in the boat” were certainly not softies. They were not from the privileged colleges of Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge that traditionally produce great rowers. These boys were from Washington State University, and they were used to a kind of hardship that at times defies belief.
Brown has shrewdly built his story around the figure of Joe Rantz, whom he met by chance as an old man. He was tall (they were all tall), a blond, good-looking teenager whose childhood was so harsh it is a miracle he survived.
His mother died when he was a tot, and his stepmother loathed him, persuading his father to abandon him, leaving Joe to fend for himself, washing dishes, chopping wood, foraging for mushrooms in the woods, and, amazingly, succeeding at school and winning a place at university.
Joe tried out for the rowing team, for which there was fierce competition. Just as important to success were the “shells”, long boats beautifully sculpted by British master craftsman.
The Berlin Olympics produced some of the best rowers in the world. The momentum builds, and accelerates, and it will take a stern reader to stop the tears.
Once in a while a book comes along that I fall utterly in love with. This is one. * The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown is published by Pan Books