Structure

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown is divided into four sections of equal length, book-ended by a prologue and epilogue. In the epilogue, the author explains to the reader how he came upon Joe Rantz as his subject. In the epilogue, he fills the reader in on the lives of the boys in the boat in the years after the 1936 Olympic Games. The main body of the book surrounds the University of Washington’s goal of competing in the Berlin summer Olympics. The first section of the book, What Seasons They Have Been Through, describes life in America during the Great Depression, Joe Rantz’s childhood, and how he came to find himself at the University of Washington. It ends with the turning point in Joe’s life of when he made the freshman rowing team. The second section, Resiliency, focuses on the University...