The subtitle of Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Daniel James Brown, 2013, is instructive. The boys are rowers in an 'eight oar boat' so there are eight plus the coxswain. The climax is their performance at the Olympics, but, the book is much more than that. It's primary focus is one of the boys, Joe Rantz, and it gives his biography from birth to death.
This is a very rich book putting the rowing events, and the lives of the participants, in historical context. It relates the events that were happening in America as background to the lives of the rowers, e'g., the Great Depression. As the books moves toward the 1936 Olympics it places those games in the historical context of Nazi Germany, Hitler's rise to power, and the propaganda power of the Olympics for Hitler's Germany.
Inspiration drips from the book which details the sacrifices and struggles the boys endure for a perfect row. It is a moving testimony to the beauty and power of the human spirit. A friend said it was the best book he ever read. I would not put it in that category but I do think it is a very good book and I'm glad I read it.
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