The Costco Connection

By Stephanie E. Ponder

IN 2008, THE inspiration for this month’s Book Buyer’s Pick, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, literally walked into author Daniel James Brown’s living room.

Brown was hosting a homeowners’ meeting, and his neighbor, Judy Willman, invited him to meet her father, Joe Rantz, who was one of the rowers on the 1936 team.

All Brown knew was that Rantz was a fan of one of his books. What Brown would soon learn was that for years Willman had followed her father around with a microphone, recording information about his life. With all of that history gathered, she lacked only a writer.

“I knew immediately that there was the big sweep
of the story, and I knew from the fact that Joe was
tearing up a lot as he [was] telling the story that there
was a lot of heart there,” says Brown. “I asked him that
very first day if I could write a book about him.”
In that first meeting, Rantz, then in the last
months of his life, talked to Brown about growing
up during the Depression, his University of
Washington rowing career and the race for Olympic
gold in front of Adolf Hitler.

The themes in Rantz’s story—and Brown’s book—are as universal as the rivalries between universities and as big as Hitler setting the stage for World War II. Drama also unfolds on a personal level with each of the nine members of the rowing team.

“I get emails almost every day that
say, ‘I almost didn’t read your book
because I thought it was about rowing,’ ”
Brown tells The Connection over coffee
near his Redmond, Washington, home.
“It started off appealing to rowers … but
people came to understand that rowing
is just sort of the stage on which this
human drama played out.”
Despite early attempts to give each
crew member equal time, it’s Rantz’s
story—both compelling and fully docu-
mented by his daughter—that moves the book
along. “He was a very positive, forward-looking
man, and he was never bitter, even about what his
stepmother and father had done,” says Brown. “And
I think that was kind of characteristic of all these
guys, and of that generation of Americans. They
knew hard times and they got through them.”
Over the next several weeks, Brown also talked to
the family members of Rantz’s former rowing team-
mates. “The more I began to dig into this story, it just
got richer. I kept finding more layers to it,” he adds.

For Brown, writing for a living was always the goal. He studied English and then taught writing at San Jose State University and Stanford, but it wasn’t until he retired from a job as a technical writer and editor at Microsoft that he had the freedom to pursue writing full time.

The Boys in the Boat is his third nonfiction book. Since its publication last year, the author has watched as interest in this book has spread from rowers to people living in the Pacific Northwest to readers nationwide, culminating with the sale of the film rights.

“A lot of really great stories came out of that Olympics, and this is one of those that sort of got buried a little bit under the Jesse Owens story,” Brown explains about why he was lucky enough to tackle this story. “[The team] came home in dribs and drabs, and they immediately had to go about trying to find some kind of job to get through another year in school. Most of them literally put their gold medals in sock drawers and didn’t talk about them for years. So it just faded away.” C

Ripple effect

Signed book gıveaway

COSTCO HAS 50 copies of The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown, with signed book plates, to give away. To enter, just go to: www.costco connectionbookgiveaway.com.

NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT OR OPT-IN OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.

Purchase will not improve odds of winning. Sweepstakes is sponsored by Penguin Group, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014. Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age 18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household. Entries must be received before the July issue is available online, which will happen around June 25. Winners will be randomly selected and noti;ed by mail on or before August 1,

2014. The value of the prize is $17. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. Employees of Costco or Penguin Group and their families are not eligible.

F RA N CE F RE EM A N

rowers to people living in the Pacific Northwest to
tackle this story. “[The team] came home in dribs
i
another year in school. Most of them literally

Pennie Clark Ianniciello, Costco book buyer

MY DAILY commute takes me across Lake Washington, where it’s not unusual to see rowers out on the water. For years the rowers blended into the scenery, and then I read this month’s pick, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936

Berlin Olympics, by Daniel James Brown.

It’s the true story of the University of Washington rowing team that competed in the 1936

Berlin Olympics. Yes, it’s a book about rowing.

And it’s a book about my hometown, Seattle, in an earlier day. But on a broader scale, it’s about the beginning of Hitler’s reign. It’s about the faith of a coach, the wisdom of a craftsman shell maker and friendships that last a lifetime. And it’s about the nine-member rowing team that, ultimately, came together to be part of something much bigger than any individual.