The Boys in the Boat

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics is a non-fiction novel written by Daniel James Brown and published on June 4, 2013. Background The Boys in the Boat is a true story based on the struggles and sacrifices made by the University of Washington rowing team to compete at the highest possible level, rowing at the 1936 Summer Olympics – Men's eight. Joseph Sutton-Holcomb from The Seattle Times mentions that Brown got the idea to write this book when his neighbor Judy Willman walked into his home in Redmond, Washington. She said that her father on hospice, Joe Rantz, was a fan of his works and wanted to have a conversation with the author. That encounter with Judy ignited a conversation with Joe Rantz about life during the Great Depression, which led to an in-depth chat about his time as a rower at the University of Washington. Growing up, Joe felt ostracized by his father and stepmother and was seen as disposable, which correlates to how many people during that time felt. The Depression brought about so much uncertainty, and people felt as if they did not have any control over their own lives. In an interview with Joseph Sutton-Holcomb from The Seattle Times, Brown emphasized that the reason he spent so much time on the build-up to the race was because he thought “it's much more meaningful if you know the nine guys involved on some kind of personal level, and if you knew what the German boys wearing swastikas on their chests represented, that they weren't just another bunch of kids in a boat.” Plot The Boys in the Boat is about the University of Washington eight-oared rowing crew that represented the United States in rowing at the 1936 Summer Olympics – Men's eight in Berlin, and narrowly beat out Italy and Germany to win the gold medal. The main character is Joe Rantz. Rantz had a tough time growing up and was abandoned by his family for several years to fend for himself.