Content Warning: The source material features depictions of the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany, poverty, and the abandonment of a child.

Author Daniel James Brown visits Joe, who is dying from congestive heart failure. Brown knows two things about Joe: He “hand-split the rails and cut the posts” (1) of his own home, and he, along with nine other “farm boys, fishermen, and loggers” (1), won the 1936 Olympic gold medal in rowing. Brown and Joe talk about the famous event, and Brown expresses his interest in writing a book about Joe and his accomplishments. Joe urges Brown not to write about him but about the whole boat.

It is 1933, the fourth year of the Great Depression. It is a sunny day at the University of Washington in Seattle, and the student body is still enraptured by the “improbable” ending of the latest World Series, in which the New York Giants upset the Washington Senators thanks to the series-winning home run from short hitter Mel Ott.

As other students eat lunch in the sunshine, freshman Joe enters the shell house for the Washington rowing team, the building where the boats are kept. He and his new friend

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