Reviewer John Cowans: John lives in
retirement in Chester, NS ,where he has been an Instructor with
Seniors College Association of Nova Scotia.
He is currently working on a personal memoir, Other People’s Children, and his first poetry collection, Hope.
Author: Daniel James Brown
ISBN: 978-0-670-02581-1Author: Daniel James Brown
ISBN:
978-0-670-02581-1
When one thinks
of great sports writing Roger Angell’s The Summer Game comes
immediately to mind, as do the many pieces on golf by Herbert Warren
Wind; not to forget John McPhee’s many New Yorker profiles,
especially ‘A Sense of Where You Are’ (1965) about Princeton
basketball star Bill Bradley; and then, of course, who could ignore
David Halberstam’s Everything They Had. Certainly, in the weeks
ahead, Daniel James Brown’s The Boys in the Boat will join this
august company because his story of the University of Washington’s
1936 Olympic quest for gold by their extraordinary eight -man crew is
a classic literary achievement about a memorable and momentous
athletic accomplishment.
Daniel James Brown grew up in San
Francisco and attended Diablo Valley College and the University of
California at Berkley and UCLA. He taught writing at San Jose State
University and Stanford. He is the author of two non-fiction books
and now writes full time and lives with his family near
Seattle, Washington.
Three major strands together spin the basic
weave of Daniel James Brown’s amazing yarn; first comes the boat,
The Husky Clipper and its builder, George Pocock; second are the
major players, the nine Boys in the Boat, and finally, the long
arduous journey which starts on Lake Washington in 1933 and moves
steadily onwards culminating in Germany on the Langer See at Grunau
and the Nazi Olympics of 1936.
George Yeoman Pocock was born at
Kingston upon Thames in 1891 “ ...within sight of some of the
finest rowing water in the world.” He was descended from a long
line of boat builders. Not only did he build boats; he rowed them,
imitating the style of the powerful Thames watermen. As a builder, he
said at one time, “My ambition has always been to be the greatest
shell builder in the world ....” He learned his trade from his
father at Eton using simple hand tools not just building boats but
sculpting them. In 1927 he revolutionized the building of racing
shells which had always been made of expensive Spanish cedar by
experimenting with native western red cedar. As a result, at the
Intercollegiate Poughkeepsie Racing Association Regatta in 1936, 17
of 18 shells entered were built by him.
One of George Pocock’s
greatest achievements was certainly his building of the 1936 Gold
Medal shell The Husky Clipper, a cedar and spruce, red and yellow
masterpiece that carried ‘the boys’ to their Olympic
victory in Germany. Today, a sole survivor of that great achievement,
it proudly hangs in retirement in the dining commons of the Conibear
Shell House at the University of Washington.
This is the story of
the boys who rowed The Husky Clipper to victory in Germany in 1936 -
Gordon Adam, Chuck Day, Don Hume, George ‘Shorty’ Hunt, Jim
‘Stub’ MacMillan, coxswain Bob Moch, Roger Morris, John White
jr., and Joe Rantz whose personal struggles form a centre piece for
this extraordinary journey. A chance meeting between the author and
Joe’s daughter Judy towards the end of her father’s life, and the
ensuing conversations that Daniel James Brown had with Joe Rantz
inspired the writing and eventual publication of this exciting,
well crafted saga.
Looming over all the positive aspects of this story, casting an ugly shadow over the images of athletic endeavor and national and personal commitment, flutters the black and red flag of advancing Nazism. As the boys prepare their challenge in the early years of the 1930’s, Hitler and his thuggish gang, most notably the conniving Goebbels and even the self serving filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl prepare to unleash their hellish rampage across Europe, but first would come the Berlin Olympics which Hitler tried to use to present a false and deceitful political German face for the world to admire. Part of Daniel James Brown’s story is the initial success of this deception and then the resounding rejection that the winning of the American Gold Medal in Rowing helped to deliver to Hitler and his destructive cause.
Finally this is a book to
delight the lover of sports writing as well as the historian. One
cannot ask for more than masterful writing and flawless research all
wrapped up in a unique historical human story of the selfless pursuit
of excellence.