REVIEW OF #62 THE BOYS IN THE BOAT

 REVIEW BY TOM WELLS

How could a book about the 1936 US Olympics rowing team be one for our current Covid times? It’s about long training sessions in cold, wet weather. It’s about the physics of rowboats and their rowers. It’s about a sport that these days mostly gets attention every four years. But it’s also about a boy, kicked to the curb by his father and step-mother, who manages to stay in school while working a minimum-wage job, get accepted to the University of Washington at a time when 10% of pupils went on to higher education and there excel at a sport in which he has no prior training while working a summer job building the Grand Coulee Dam in conditions that make you think, yes, Health & Safety does have a vital social role. It’s also about the plucky underdog triumphing over those holding all the cards. And it’s about defeating fascists, if only in a boat race. So why is it relevant to current Covid times? Because anyone who thinks he/she has it tough needs to read it and reflect. 

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