Anton lives in a new neighbourhood near the Amstel river in Amsterdam in the 1930's. From his early childhood onwards, the river attracts him and when he is about 14 years' old he becomes a member of the rowing club on the other side of the Amstel. Anton is an outsider: the other member are from higher social classes, his father works in the public transport branch. He is also an outsider in other aspects: he observes the others and doubts himself.

But then one day the eccentric Dr. Schneiderhahn chooses anton and David for the coxless two. In Anton's view David is his very antipole: he is self-confident and outgoing. Slowly but surely the two boys become a perfect team. In the summer of 1939 they start competition rowing and they win one race after another. It becomes more and more apparent that they have a chance to participate in the 1940 Olympics in Finland. At the end of the year they promise each other to go on as a team in the next year.

The book is written as a oppressive retrospective of Anton who finds himself on the pier of the derelict rowing club in 1944. the reader knows what has happened between 1939 and 1944 and the typically Jewish name David strongly suggests that history has not been kind to him. A beautiful book in sensitive prose.

When an author can create a completely absorbing novel, peopled with finely tuned characters that stir us with tension and competition and longing, a novel that uses as its base a sport that few readers know enough about to connect, then that author has displayed credentials of an impressive talent. ON THE WATER spends alomst every page in the preparation, practice and execution of a two man crew boat. He gradually pulls us into that boat with an understanding of the rules of the game and the rigors of the men who row. Then, subtly and with great tenderness he unveils his two young men of polar diferences and weaves a story of the power of sporting competion and the greater power of finding a soulmate. This bonding between lower class gentile Anton and upper class Jew David is engineered by a German Doctor in 1939. This beautiful story of an exploration of place and love is set in the last summer before Hitler destroys Europe. We are left to guess the fate of David while we discover the solitary wandering Anton who tells the story five years later along the banks of the river where they spent the most beautiful time of their lives. This novel gleams with magical poetry and introduces an author (and translator) who seems destined to find an important role in the 21st Century of literature. Read this book!

This is a debut novel and a very fine one at that. Hans Maarten van den Brink has written a lyric story of athleticism and the body, of a love of water and rowing, of how a young man grows to be a friend, a teammate, a champion. The author is observant of nature, the body and humanity, he knows the challenge and joy of sports and can communicate that experience as far as it can be done even to the couch potato. He has a sure choice for words and felicitous phrasing (the translator, Paul Vincent, deserves much credit and praise as well). I look forward to reading more of him