17 United States – The boys in the boat – Daniel James Brown – November 2014 (Score 9.25)

This book was not in our normal sequence of reading. It is an extra book, recommended to us by one of our friends from Maine who joined us for an evening’s discussion and dinner a few years ago. It is a true story, outside our normal reading, but it was so highly recommended that we had to read it.

It is 1933, in Seattle. It is the depths of the Great Depression which hit the United States as badly as anywhere else in the world. Tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs, their homes and their savings. People are hungry, some starving, only saved by soup kitchens and other kinds of public relief such as food banks (just like Scotland at the moment, but worse).

In America 25% of people, ten million workers, are jobless. Franklin Delaney Roosevelt is president. Hitler leads Germany.

We move to the University of Washington where students are sitting on the grass, eating their lunches, apparently carefree. The contrast is remarkable. We meet Roger Morris and Joe Rantz, both new first year students. The young men, and many more, are heading for an old sea-plane hangar on the shore of Lake Washington. The building is full of racing shells.

Roger and Joe hope to be among those selected to join the rowing fraternity. Joe is depending on this to save him from returning to the unemployed masses, struggling for food and work.

Only nine of the 175 young men there are to be selected as crew for the beginners’ boat. Most of them are from well-off families, sons of lawyers and businessmen. A few are from much poorer backgrounds, sons of farmers, lumberjacks and fishermen.

Tom Bolles will be teaching them the fundamentals of shell-boat racing. Al Ulbrickson is the head coach of the University rowing programme.

The story moves back into Joe’s childhood. We watch him growing up, going to school, moving house with his family. Then the Great Depression bites hard. Joe’s family moved away, leaving him to fend for himself – which he did, admirably and inventively though still a youngster.

Back in their present we see how the hard work of the freshmen is beginning to pay off. Interestingly, the first occurrence of the Olympic torch relay from Greece to the Olympic stadium seems to have been for the 1936 Nazi games for Hitler.

The discussion of West versus East rivalry in the developing boat races, American football and horse racing is fascinating. It seems to be a case of Eastern wealth and privilege against western homespun attitudes and normality.

We also see the horrendous effects of the Great Dust Bowl on the land, the people and the animals. We see people who have lost everything, trudging westwards, or packed with whatever little they could carry I old cars, on old trucks.

I was caught up in the lives of these boys and their coaches, and especially that of Joe Rantz. Not being in the least bit interested in sport I would never have imagined I could have become so involved in a story of this nature, with young men trying to weld themselves into a race winning team.

The story of the continuing training and the hard work needed for Washington to pass through the stages of winning major races to qualify for the Olympics was incredible. Then there was the qualifying race on the first day of the Olympics themselves, which Washington won convincingly in a world and Olympic record.

On the third day, the finals, a dreadful rainy and blustery day, America drew lane six, the outer lane on a long curve which even before the race started put them at a disadvantage of a length and a half, and in the teeth of the wind and rain. The United Kingdom were marginally better off in lane five. Germany was in the best, shortest and most sheltered lane one.

As the race went on, and America began to catch up slowly from last position, and with one oarsman seriously ill, my pace of reading picked up in time with the beat of their oars so that, as they pulled over the line to win gold I could feel my heartbeat keep time with their increasing speed. I almost felt that I was there, and I was physically exhausted.

I loved this book. I loved the story of the trials and tribulations of these young men. The book was difficult to put down so as to get on with ordinary life for a while. I was compelled to give it a score of ten. That was a first for me among the thousands of books which I have read, though some have come close.