On Friday, Oct. 25, Daniel James Brown was interviewed by Frank Mallicoat from KTVU in the Diablo Valley College library forum. Prior to the event, there was a VIP reception where The Inquirer had the privilege to take fifteen minutes of his time and discuss his life journey that led him to the success he has today.
Brown is the author of many bestselling books, most notably The Boys in the Boat, which covers the journey of nine young men who defied the odds and won the gold medal in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin for the men’s eight rowing event. The book was recently made into a movie directed by George Clooney, released on Christmas 2023. As Brown says himself, “There are forces in the world that are stronger than any one individual, and there are times when people have to come together with other people in order to confront them.”
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Tori Pearson: How about starting by telling me a little about yourself – where you’re from, what brought you to DVC, and your path to becoming a best-selling author?
Daniel James Brown: I grew up in the Bay Area. I was born in Berkeley, ended up living in Walnut Creek, and a little later my family moved to Orinda. In 1969, I dropped out of high school. I was having extreme anxiety. And in those days, people really didn’t know much about anxiety, how to treat it, or really what was going on. So I dropped out and that left me in this quandary: how am I going to move forward with my life? It was actually my mother who said, “You can go to DVC,” and so she showed me how to register and I came out here one day in 1970, signed up for classes, and just loved it right from the beginning.
My anxiety about school melted away completely. I made lots of friends and had great instructors — one English instructor in particular who sort of took me under his wing. I was a good student in English and so he nurtured that, and by the time I left here I knew what I wanted to do. Ideally I wanted to be an English instructor, and in fact, that’s what I became for a number of years, but mostly I just wanted to live in that world of books and ideas that English majors do. That led to a number of jobs and situations, and eventually turned me into a writer, so I’m now in that sort of third phase of my life writing these books. Very much to my surprise, it’s actually worked out pretty well, but that all started at DVC.
TP: In your award winning book The Boys in the Boat, you cover nine working-class boys from the University of Washington who persevere against the odds and go on to accomplish something absolutely amazing and beyond themselves: winning gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Primarily you talk about the life of Joe Rantz, his childhood, and how his father left him when he was 13 or 14 years old. If there was a book written about your childhood, what would that look like?
DJB: Well, I certainly never encountered the kind of obstacles that Joe Rantz did. I mean, he encountered real deprivation. He was basically abandoned by his parents when he was 14 and had to make his way in the world. So he faced real, true adversity. And I’ve always been interested in people, how they overcome things like that. My life, frankly, it’s been basically pretty privileged. I did have this one big problem as an adolescent, which was I just had crushing anxiety, and that caused an enormous amount of turmoil in my life and left me really sort of full of self-loathing and in a very bad place. So I think if somebody was going to write about my life, they’d probably have to deal with that, talk about how I got past that, and as I say, I think DVC was a big part of that.
But then beyond that, I’ve had this passion for books, for writing, for reading, for the world of ideas ever since. I don’t think my life’s particularly interesting, but I think one thing that might be interesting about it is [that] people generally these days often say that an English degree is a degree that’s not worth getting. My experience was completely opposite to that. I had three wonderfully rewarding careers with my degree in English. I was a college English teacher for 12 years and [ had] a wonderful time, extremely fulfilling. Then I was a technical editor, technical writer and instructional designer at Microsoft, and although I wasn’t passionate about computers, I actually found that work of teaching users how to use the software interesting. I found Microsoft really a fun place to work because it’s full of really smart people. And then, that turned into this job as a book author. That’s where I had wanted to wind up all along. It took me until I was fifty to get there.
TP: But better late than never!
DJB: Better late than never. So if there’s an arch to my life, it would probably just revolve around taking that English degree and seeing what could be done with it.
TP: There’s this quote that I absolutely loved from your book. It states, when talking about the different life lessons the boys learned during their time being on the rowing crew, “Each in his own way, they had all learned that nothing could be taken for granted in life, that for all their strength and good looks and youth, forces were at work in the world that were greater than they.” What were some of the life lessons that you feel you learned during your time here, or during your career, that you kept close to your heart and took forward with you?
DJB: Pretty much that same lesson: there are forces in the world that are stronger than any one individual, and there are times when people have to come together with other people in order to confront them. So I’m a big believer in collective action, in forming teams, in forming groups and making relationships. That whole generation of Americans that lived through the Depression—and these boys were a part of that, beginning with the stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression—they faced this enormous thing in their lives, and the only way they could get through it was by putting their differences aside, coming together, pulling together, and getting things done together. I’m a huge admirer of that generation. They certainly had their faults, but they really exemplified something that is potentially great in all of us: the ability to transcend ourselves, become part of something bigger than ourselves, and work with other people to reach goals that we might not otherwise be able to reach.
TP: The transformation that all of these men had to go through is an inspirational story to read within the historical context and their personal lives. I can only imagine what it must have been like for you to put six years of your life into telling the story of these people. How do you feel writing this book, as well as your other books, ultimately changed you from the person you were before you started going into literature?
DJB: All of my books in one way or another have to do with people overcoming adversity. All of them have to do with ordinary people, all of them ordinary Americans in fact, who confront really really challenging circumstances. So, as I say, I think my life’s been pretty privileged. But it has given me an enormous appreciation for those people who are able to come through those times. It’s been inspirational for me. I didn’t know any of these stories before I sat down, researched them, and wrote them. And when you write a book, it’s like reading a book but really, really deeply. I know a lot of readers have been inspired particularly by The Boys in the Boat. Believe me, the experience of writing the book has inspired me very, very deeply. It’s changed my outlook on the world. I no longer see things that I thought were real challenges as very significant.
TP: As a result of your work, on June 8 you were given an honorary degree from the University of Washington. Tell me what that experience was like for you.
DJB: It really surprised me. I went to DVC, and then I went to Cal [UC Berkeley] and got a B.A., and I went to UCLA and got a Masters—all in English. And a lot of my friends went on to get Ph.D.s in English, and I didn’t. Somewhere in the back of my mind that’s always bothered me. So it was cool, I mean it’s an honorary degree, it’s not the real thing, and mine came a lot more easily than those poor people that have spent six years writing a dissertation and having to defend it and all that. I recognize that, but still I’m pretty proud of it. The University of Washington began working with me on this book very early, the people in the rowing program in particular. But as the book became popular, every level of the university became engaged with me and engaged with the book and engaged with the story. I’ve come very close to a lot of people there, and very fond of the administration there. So anyway, it was very nice of them to do that and I’m very honored.
TP: In the epilogue you mentioned how you actually went to where the boys rowed in Berlin, and you wrote that it was kind of an awestruck moment for you. Were there any smaller moments that you particularly were fond of while you were uncovering the different stories of their journey?
DJB: Yeah, there are probably lots of them. What I write is called narrative nonfiction, and often when you start to write a project like this, what sounds like a great idea at first, the more you dig into it, oftentimes it just kind of peters out. It doesn’t turn out to be as good a story as you thought, or there isn’t enough information about it to really develop into a book. With The Boys in the Boat especially, the deeper I dug into that story, the more doors opened up. It was just one thing after another as I started to learn more about them, their families. There were all these little moments of complete surprise.
For instance, when I was writing the book people kept talking about George Pocock, the boat builder. Pocock, Pocock, Pocock. And I kept thinking, “So what? I don’t care who built the boat.” But then, finally, I got curious, so I looked into this guy named George Pocock and turned out he’s this amazing figure. This ultimate craftsman, sort of a Yoda-like figure to these boys, just full of wisdom, and his life was really interesting. So this whole new thing opened up the moment I started looking into Pocock’s life. I don’t know if there was any one giant transcendent moment, but there were lots of little moments when the story opened up and I was inspired by new things that I was finding deeper into the story.
TP: If you had to give a word of advice to any current DVC students who maybe are beginning their journey in English or history or any other degree, what would be a valuable suggestion to give them in their future endeavors?
DJB: I would say, first of all, take advantage of every moment of your experience here. The two years I spent at DVC were not the only two happy years of my life, but among the happiest years of my life because I had great instructors. And I would also say find classes and find instructors who light you up. I took freshman English from a guy here named William Spark, and he literally changed my life. He took me under his wing, he taught me how to be an English major, taught me how to think in a lot of ways. It changed the whole direction of my life.
So whatever field you may be interested in, whether it’s drone technology or whatever it is, find somebody who’s passionate about it and spend time with them. Be receptive to what they can teach you. Because most people teaching at community colleges, I know this because I did it for a while, they do it mostly because they love their students. They want to energize their students, they want to make their students’ lives better, they want to light their students up. So find someone who lights you up in an area you are excited about and then things will take care of themselves.
TP: Thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate you sitting down with me.
DJB: Yeah. That was fun.