From the Feb 1999 Library Journal:
A classics professor, Strauss was admittedly a failure as an athlete in his youth and less than dedicated to any pastime as he neared 40, when he discovered rowing through a chance sighting of a class for beginners. This class led to a new-found dedication to the sport through an amateur towing club in Ithaca, NY. As he soon discovered, taking up a sport at 40 is different from starting at 16. Perhaps it was the effort that Strauss exerted to become a competent oarsman that makes this book so fascinating. His contemporary struggle with rowing is well placed in a setting of the major role the ocean played in the hey-day of ancient Greece. A good read and one that can be enjoyed with profit by a wide range of readers. Recommended for public and school libraries.
From Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 1999:
To be middle-aged and ghosting a scull through the early morning light of a Lake Cayuga dawn: that's where Strauss finds himself, a pilgrim of sorts, searching for a little self-affirmation. It wasn't just that he needed the workout . . . . Rowing also held the promise of testing the athletic competence and resolve of someone who had fumbled painfully as a child. Redemption seemed to lurk in the boat, a wedding of the cerebral and corporeal. Yet this isn't so much the story of a personal quest. Instead, Strauss revels in the sheer beauty of the sport . . . . The author's enthusiasm is infectious, buoying the heft of his writing . . . . Strauss also makes something well worth reading from the curious blending of elite and common that permeates rowing.... Strauss has tapped into something special out there in his scull. He does fine service to his sport in this memoir.