The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

 

First Line: This book was born on a cold, drizzly, late spring day when I clambered over the split-rail cedar fence that surrounds my pasture and made my way through wet woods to the modest frame house where Joe Rantz lay dying.

 

In 1936, nine working-class boys from the University of Washington went to the Berlin Olympics in a quest for the gold medal. Their sport: rowing, a sport of which George Yeoman Pocock said, "That is the formula for endurance and success: rowing with the heart and the head as well as physical strength." It is an emotional, mental, and physical sport which, in this particular case, asks that nine human beings be in perfect tune with each other.

Author Daniel James Brown does an excellent job of putting his story into the context of the world stage, a time in which Hitler was determined to become master of the world-- and also a time when the world was still in the grip of the Depression.

At the heart of The Boys in the Boat is Joe Rantz of the University of Washington rowing team. At the age of ten, he was abandoned by his parents. Joe's father was willing to follow the lead of his second wife, a woman who decided that there were too many mouths to feed and that this child had to go. At one point, she told him, "Make your own life, Joe. Stay out of ours." Brown builds his story from the boys' journals and vivid memories, and it's a true Cinderella story. These boys were competing in an elite sport normally thought of as belonging to the privileged rich of the East Coast. 

Often compared to Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, I found The Boys in the Boat more in tune with another of her books, Seabiscuit: An American Legend, with its emphasis on sport, the Depression, and a fascinating cast. As much as I savored the stories of the boys on the University of Washington rowing team, I also appreciated the in-depth look at the sport of rowing itself. I never knew how popular it was in the 1930s or how demanding it was.

 

If you're in the mood for a thrilling, eye-opening, often heart-wrenching, slice of history, I highly recommend The Boys in the Boat.  

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

by Daniel James Brown

eISBN: 9781101622742

Penguin Books © 2013

eBook, 417 pages

 

Non-Fiction, Standalone

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Frozen in Time by Nikki Nichols

Title: Frozen in Time: The Enduring Legacy of the 1961 U.S. Figure Skating Team
Author: Nikki Nichols
ISBN: 9781578603343, Clerisy Press, 2009
Genre: Non-Fiction
Rating: A

First Line: Laurence Owen bounded through the hallways of the Broadmoor Ice Palace sporting a luminous grin as she shook the fresh coating of snow off her boots.

The U.S. Figure Skating team was at the pinnacle of the sport in 1961 as 18 skaters, their family members and coaches boarded the plane for Prague and the World Championships. They never reached their destination. The plane crashed, and all on board were killed.

This book is a reverential look back by competitive figure skater and journalist Nikki Nichols. The focus is on the top two women skaters, Laurence Owen and her rival, Stephanie Westerfeld. Both faced a tremendous amount of pressure. Owen's mother, Olympic skater Maribel Owen was the most famous woman skater of her day. Maribel worked both her daughters (Laurence's sister Mara was a pairs skater) endlessly in order for them to achieve glory. Far from the Owens' turf in New England, Myra Westerfeld was doing the same thing with her daughters, Sherri and Stephanie, at the Broadmoor in Colorado. Laurence and Stephanie finished first and second in the U.S. Championships and were expected to do great things in the World Championships. Laurence graced the cover of Sports Illustrated on the day she died.

Nichols also goes into the history of the sport. Maribel's nemesis was Sonja Henie, the most famous figure skater in the world, who won many championships and starred in Hollywood movies. My mother fell in love with figure skating watching those movies, and she passed her love of the sport on to me. Nichols' overview of the sport's history was an important part of the book, and I needed the refresher course, not only on the history, but on those dreaded school figures and the partisan judging that seems to have always been a part of who wins and who loses.

Anyone who reads this book looking for juicy scandals will find none. What they will find is history, rivalry, and a national sport that was brought to its knees by a terrible tragedy. That the USFSA was back on top in 1968 when Peggy Fleming won the Olympic gold is an amazing feat.

Any fan who loves the sport of figure skating should enjoy this book.