The Boys in the Boat: Daniel James Brown

This was a really interesting story, it focuses on Joe Rantz (I assume because he outlived everyone else)and then at the very end talks about the Olympic race in Berlin in 1936. Joe's mother dies when he was very young, his father fled to Canada after her death, though it never really says why. Joe was raised by relatives for a couple years, then his father got remarried and took him back for a couple years until Joe yells at his little step brother for pulling up carrots and his step mother insist the father, who evidently was also a flake with no backbone, finds work for the ten year old who then has to forage or find a way to eat. After a few more years, the father takes him back until Joe comes home from school at 15 to find the family car packed up and the family leaving. For the third time the dad tells Joe he can't come and has the audacity to tell Joe the little kids need him more than Joe does, after having left him when he was four. The story then goes on to explain how the "boys in the boat" where selected and that they were all from working class backgrounds, which was evidently uncharacteristic for boating at the time. The Team heads to Germany by boat and one of the boys, the 1st rower, gets a lung infection yet still competes because his team mates insist they will row him across the line just as long as he is in the boat. The race doesn't start off well, they were given the worst lane, which was choppy from the wind, and couldn't hear the starting call, so they got out late. While rowing, the sick boy sort of went catatonic, and there was so much noise from the crowd that no one could hear the coxswain trying to increase the pace. The Coxwain resorted to pounding on the boat and the sick boy became alert, they rowed to exertion taking the gold metal.