Writing and Riding: An Interview with Adin Dobkin

By Shalvi J Shah

In 1919, right after World War I, Tour de France cyclists united a country that had been torn apart by unprecedented desolation and tragedy. Sprinting Through No Man’s Land by Adin Dobkin explores how they did it. Told through the eyes of L’Auto editor Henri Desgrange as well as some of the cyclists that participated in the 1919 Tour de France, the book—written in chapters interspersed with photographs—guides us through the race as it describes the war-torn landscape and the people who live in it. A razor-sharp focus on the cycling narrative as dug out from archival research by Dobkin accompanied by a deft, descriptive painting of the aftermath of the Great War lends a rich, full tone to the retelling. Here, Dobkin and Shah sit down at the Hungarian Pastry Shop with some tea, coffee, and almond blondies to talk about nonfiction craft, the process of writing the book, and larger discussions surrounding sports today.

Let’s talk about how to capture a moment as opposed to a broad history of an entire war. When thinking about tightening the scope of the narrative you mentioned Henri Desgrange became the starting point for the project. How did that happen?

I always knew the narrative had to start with Desgrange, because even though the conception of the race wasn’t originally his, the race wouldn’t have existed in this way in 1919 without him. I knew that if I only focused on the cyclists there was going to be some repetition.

The way I see a cyclist in the book is like an automaton—while they’re riding they’re just trying to get to the end of the day. What Desgrange had in mind was a sense of his legacy and how this event might be more than just a sporting event. I’m not a huge sport person, but I’m also, in the same way, interested in the mythology around sports and how people get bound up in sports. Desgrange volunteered to be an enlisted soldier at the age of fifty. He was all of these complex things—conservative, xenophobic, violently opposed to Germans. I wanted to speak to that complexity.

The idea for your book was sparked by your visit to a French village and also a previous project you were working on. What made you decide to focus on cycling?

Cycling because of the Tour de France; because it has these unique cultural associations. It is a sporting event that’s larger than a sporting event. Roland Barthes called it an “epic.” Due to the nature of the race, cyclists rode through the Western Front, and they rode around the entire border of the country. Even when I was previously writing a novel, I was interested in looking at the landscape of that village, which is this almost fairytale, provincial place. I was interested in juxtaposing it with the absolute devastation of war—all of this existed at the same time, and only the Tour de France gave me the ability to convey it in a single narrative. So, it was a partly practical choice, but it was also my continued interest in the various associations that the tour has for Frenchmen as well as an international audience.

I’d like to discuss terrain and the importance of imagination versus presence. Which part of the land became deeply embedded in your psyche, and therefore in your writing?

I think I was most interested in areas like the landscapes in Brittany, where you have Paleolithic paintings. I like thinking about the various geological ages that the cyclists would have been encountering, and the fact that in the northwest, before they hit the front, there were markers of relatively extended human occupation. Then in the northeast these were new geological markers of humans having destroyed the terrain. When I went to France to research this book, I did spend a lot of time on the battlefields—they’re still there. Today they’re not quite as abruptly located, but even in those places that aren’t kept up to replicate the battlefields, you still see every shell hole, barbed wire, and barracks. I don’t think they’ll have the same lifespan as some of those Paleolithic markers. But these individuals, these cyclists, were viewing those old ones in tandem with these new ones that would last much longer than I think they would have imagined.

What were some things you loved while writing the book? What were some that were difficult?

Many things, I loved; there were some that were difficult. I think the moments I loved most were when I was able to recreate these locational experiences. On the French national library’s website, you can go to the editions of L’Auto where they have turn-by-turn directions for the cyclists. Sometimes the roads are named slightly differently, but the basic paths they follow are often still the same. So, you can repeat those experiences, and repeating those in writing were really enjoyable for me. Getting down to the nitty gritty, whether that was driving along portions of the route, or in other sections, just using Google Earth was great.

The difficulty—in nonfiction, this is always a difficulty—was also an opportunity. As someone who writes nonfiction with an ultimate interest in storytelling, as opposed to having a public or journalistic inclination, there is a puzzle for me to unlock in ways that are sometimes nice and sometimes limiting. The story is already there, I’m just trying to figure out the practical question of how to convey it in a way that keeps me interested, as a writer. That’s difficult. Sometimes, it means spending time in nooks and crannies that allow me—even force me—to maintain my interest.

In sports journalism—especially recently—topics surrounding race, mental health, and women’s rights are constantly shifting and evolving. These are integral to both sports and war. While in your book, these subjects are treated as accoutrements—stops on the cycling path—do you see a change going forward, whether you’re writing about it, or if someone else is considering writing about it?

Sure, I think the tour is one sporting event where labor relations have always played a role since its conception. Even this year on June 29, cyclists in the tour protested some crashes that occurred, which were partially a function of how the tour is run, as well as the speeds at which cyclists race. I do think that it is good and important that these questions you’re bringing up—whether they’re surrounding the social groups or cultural groups that compete in sports, or the particular relations that are formed within—are being discussed. People who compete in sports are often publicly interrogated, partially because it’s necessary to create the story of their game. But it is better to see them as well-rounded humans than as flat icons.

I mean, you’re going to have limitations, like the 1919 race—where young white men were competing—and there’s no getting around that fact while still centering the narrative on the race itself. What I was really interested in when I started the book was in that particular moment in time and the social and cultural movements that arose out of it. That was the stimulus for including some of those racial and gendered perspectives. Some people have asked why I included those perspectives and whether it was because I felt some need to later on, but it was really from the get-go that I had sections set aside for those voices. I was interested in how those people who were watching the race were thinking about their own process of rebuilding.

About the author

Adin Dobkin is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, the Paris Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. Born in Santa Barbara, California, Adin received his MFA from Columbia University. He is the author of the recently published book, Sprinting Through No Man’s Land: Endurance, Tragedy, and Rebirth in the 1919 Tour de France.

Shalvi J. Shah is a writer, translator, and editor based in New York City and Ahmedabad. She is an MFA Candidate in fiction and literary translation at Columbia University, where she was awarded a teaching fellowship.