Daniel James Brown's robust book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.
The emotional heart of the story lies with one rower, Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not for glory, but to regain his shattered self-regard and to find a place he can call home. The crew is assembled by an enigmatic coach and mentored by a visionary, eccentric British boat builder, but it is their trust in each other that makes them a victorious team. They remind the country of what can be done when everyone quite literally pulls together—a perfect melding of commitment, determination, and optimism.
Drawing on the boys' own diaries and journals, their photos and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, The Boys in the Boat is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant. It will appeal to readers of Erik Larson, Timothy Egan, James Bradley, and David Halberstam's The Amateurs.
741 pages (June 2013)
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Title Read-alikes: Touch the Top of the World: a blind man's journey to climb farther than the eye can see by Erik Wehenmayer; Games of Deception: the true story of the first U.S. Olympic basketball team at the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Germany by Andrew Maraniss; Outcasts United: the story of a refugee soccer team that changed a town by Warren St. John; Dust Bowl Girls: the inspiring story of the team that barnstormed its way to basketball glory by Lydia Reeder; The Three-Year Swim Club: the untold story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and their quest for Olympic glory by Julie Checkoway; Olympic Gold 1936: how the image of Jesse Owens crushed Hitler's evil myth by Michael Burgan; What a Kick by Emma Carlson Berne; 1776 by David McCullough; Into Thin Air: a personal account of the Mount Everest disaster by Jon Krakauer; Course Correction: a story of rowing and resilience in the wake of Title IX by Ginny Gilder; Bucking the Sun by Ivan Doig; The Last Amateurs: to hell and back with the Cambridge boat race crew by Mark de Rond; and A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.
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