The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is yet another wonderful example of why I am glad to be in a book club. I would never have chosen this book for myself. In fact, I approached it with a rather dour "Well, I'd better get this over with!" attitude. Nonfiction in winter? Strike one. I'd rather read a thriller or epic to sweep me away from the gray days. A SPORTS story?! Strike TWO! I have some weird unidentified genetic deficiency that makes me completely uninterested in sports competitions--and the irony of my current strike system is not lost on me. And what I perceived to be the endless paragraphs dedicated to the mechanics and the who's in-who's out of the rowing nearly had me calling strike three.
And then the Washington rowing team traveled to Poughkeepsie in the hopes of reaching the Olympic trials, and I realized I couldn't put the book down. I was deeply invested in a nonfiction SPORTS story!
Brown's extensive research and narrative style are certainly to blame for what is now my rave review. Story arcs were complete, characters very well-defined, and settings vividly described. I hung onto every passage about Germany's propaganda ramp-up for the Olympics, eager for the next installment. Joe Rantz's life and struggles could have been a whole book in itself. And I eventually understood all the focus on the mechanics of the rowing contests.
The stand-out for me was really Brown's epilogue. If I needed one more thing to fully win me over, it was his flawless concluding remarks regarding the importance, significance, and emotion of the story of the boys in the boat. I even got a little choked up. 4+ stars.
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