Elizabeth's Reviews > The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

It was a shared experience—a singular thing that had unfolded in a golden sliver of time long gone, when nine good-hearted young men strove together, pulled together as one, gave everything they had for one another, bound together forever by pride and respect and love.

I just took a massive standardized test (which is why I’ve been incommunicado for some time), so guess those kinds of questions are still swimming in my brain! There’s especially this example that sociology classes will bring up about cultural capital—that is, what you know—and how it can reproduce social inequalities. You know, that infamous example of the analogy where:

runner: marathon
(A) envoy: embassy
(B) martyr: massacre
(C) oarsman: regatta
(D) horse: stable

And, folks, the answer choice is C! Process of elimination notwithstanding, the essential critique was that this question advantaged the more affluent test-takers who knew what the heck a regatta actually was, let alone coxswains or catching crabs. Crew is one of those sports that grew popular in the rich and wealthy corridors of Oxford and Cambridge and found its way to the elite collegiate counterparts on the New England coast. I had this strikingly similar perception myself (I placed it in the same box as golf), so color me surprised that there was a book about nine scrappy boys from the West who scrabbled their way to gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The Boys in the Boat is an underdog story at its finest. Boys who were hardened by the Great Depression and crippling poverty but persevered to accomplish a special feat in their time together at the University of Washington. These were loggers, farm boys, miners, and fishermen—the perfect antithesis to the old money and tradition of the Ivy League crews. And when they race against the other teams, you feel their exhilaration in victory as your own. When they struggle to find their swing, your heart grows leaden with the same anxiety and disappointment.

Daniel James Brown has captured the scope of these boys’ physical and emotional journeys beautifully. Focusing on the years preceding 1936, the book spends the most time with Joe Rantz. His mother died young, and his father and stepmother abandoned him at age ten to fend for himself in the wilderness of Washington. His compelling story, as are the struggles and triumphs of the other key characters that intercalate this central narrative, ultimately allow The Boys in the Boat to shine. Unfortunately, some plotlines felt disruptive; I personally found the parts about Hitler and Germany less essential, too vague that they failed to establish the desired context.

Despite occasions where Brown may wander too far into descriptions of events and risk veering into a string of platitudes, I appreciated his natural exposition about the details of this sport. Melding some beginner-level physics with the basic technique of crew and coaching strategy, I found myself getting a better picture of the skill and coordination that must be flawlessly implemented by an eight-man rowing team.

This book is undoubtedly of the inspirational variety. I can understand why the American Dream is so ingrained in our country’s mythos, and as disillusioned as I become about the real injustices that contradict it, I think there’s always a secret spot reserved in my heart for the kind of genuine optimism, strength, and integrity that The Boys in the Boat exudes in spades. Eventually, the crew, the races, the Olympics all drift away into the background until you reach the crux of it—the accomplishment of nine good men bound by trust and affection.

They were rowing perfectly, fluidly, mindlessly. They were rowing as if on another plane, as if in a black void among the stars, just as Pocock had said they might. And it was beautiful.