The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

If you like “Hero” stories then this book is a must.  It is a tribute to the team in an 8-man crew (University of Washington rowing team) and their coaches and various mentors.  While the focus of the biography is Joe Rantz, a young man who grew up poor and with tenuous relationships with his family, this is ultimately the story about the brotherhood and trust of the young men in their boat that created an extraordinary racing team.  Joe carried the spirit and determination of his youth to persevere through a myriad of personal and team challenges.  Of the 8 men rowing and the coxswain who set the strategy and pace of each race, all but one finally graduated from the University of Washington (UW).  They went on to have a bond that lasted all of their lives.  Part of their strength physically and mentally arose from humble beginnings as farmers, lumberjacks, fishermen and men accustomed to hard physical labor and an understanding of cooperative effort.

 

 

 

This eight-man crew came together in 1934 and 1935 to develop into a competitive team to represent the United States in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.  Each of these student athletes was an unlikely candidate for the task by the standards of the rowing sport which was mainly dominated by well-funded Ivy League schools.  Joe’s story is compelling and at times heart wrenching.  We see the characteristics in this young man that gave him the power, literally and figuratively, to overcome all of the obstacles that he faced. 

 

 

 

This is a book that should have a home on every shelf in America where there is a young athlete who might find some valuable life lessons in its pages.  In reality, like the many books about other unlikely heroes like Seabiscuit, or Unbroken, both by Laura Hillenbrand, or John Carlin’s Invictus, we get a chance to see the actual path that led to some phenomenal accomplishments. 

 

 

 

By the time I was finishing the book, I was on the edge of my seat.  We knew the outcome, but the details of the races were exquisitely draw.  There was tension and enough drama for the most jaded of readers.

 

 

 

Overall our group of ten rated The Boys in The Boat at a 4.9/5.0.

 

 

 

For October, we are reading The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis.  We will meet at Richard’s on October 25th. 

 

From Barnesandnoble.com:

 

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd, swept up by the tides of the Great Migration, flees Georgia and heads north. Full of hope, she settles in Philadelphia to build a better life. Instead she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment, and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins are lost to an illness that a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children, whom she raises with grit, mettle, and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them to meet a world that will not be kind. Their lives, captured here in twelve luminous threads, tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage—and a nation's tumultuous journey.