Three decades later, as a father of two teenage sons, I returned to Corfu with my family. As I revisited my memories of the island, I began to understand that this place had helped to shape the person I had become, and that the inevitable letting go of my own children lay ahead.
This book is about the joys and challenges of parenthood, the fearlessness of youth, the debts of our past, and how we go about sharing stories of ourselves with our children.
Endorsements
- Susan Johnson
‘A unique and captivating contemplation of sons and fathers, and of boys in the act of becoming men.’
‘His misadventures as an 18-year-old stranded on the Ionian island of Corfu is intertwined with the story of taking his two teenage sons back 25 years later and becomes a deeply moving meditation on what it means to release our children into adulthood. ... [Gíslason's] boys grow up hearing stories about the Pirate and when the family returns to Corfu in 2022, it becomes a form of reckoning, and Running With Pirates the triumphant result.’
‘Gíslason’s reflections turn to his own experience of fatherhood and to his relationship with his sons, creating a desire to share Corfu with them. This is a joyous, tender reflection on the freedom of youth, on fatherhood, and the beauty of Corfu.’
- Nick Earls
Reviews and features
- Susan Johnson, Sydney Morning Herald/The Age
‘Kari Gislason was just 18 when he first landed in Corfu. Who else remembers what it was like to be 18, adrift in the confusion of early adulthood, with all of life dauntingly ahead of you? Gislason takes a chance by deciding to stay after meeting a character he calls The Pirate. He eventually flees, but leaves a debt that, like all debts, will have to be acknowledged and paid one day. Today Gislason is a writer and Queensland University of Technology academic whose own children are entering the early years of adulthood, and he pines for the little boys they once were while admiring the men they are soon to become.’
- Caroline Overington, The Weekend Australian
‘A story that reads like a fairy tale, with danger, romance, and a Greek pirate. I devoured this memoir. I opened it up in the early afternoon, and I could not put it down. ... It makes you think about your own travels and the people you've met. ... Running with Pirates will take you for a trip around the world; it will grab you by the heart and throat. It is Kári's story, but in so many ways his sons' story, as well. This memoir is a stunning adventure. Run and grab this book and read it to your sons, as well. Your daughters, too.’
- Rebecca Levingston, Evenings, ABC Radio
- Mark Rubbo AOM (past president of the Australian Booksellers Association and founding chair of
the Melbourne Writers Festival), Readings
‘Gíslason writes beautifully and perceptively about the emotional duality a parent feels as a child moves into adulthood. You want to protect them and you want to set them free. Though the settings are different, he is on the same emotional page as the Australian writer Maggie MacKellar in her recent memoir, Graft, set on a sheep farm in Tasmania. [...] Vladimir Nabokov described his characters as “galley slaves”. Gíslason certainly holds enough of a whip hand over his characters to make parts of this book a page-turner. He withholds information to keep the reader guessing about the real intentions of the Pirate in 1990. And the obvious question in the second timeframe – is the Pirate still there? – is left dangling for a good while. When the answers arrive – in each timeframe – they leave a hollow in the author’s life that he can’t quite explain. But his present self knows it’s connected to his feelings about fatherhood, and he is grateful he was able to take his sons to Corfu. “Fatherhood,” he concludes, “ultimately faces forwards rather than back.”’
- Stephen Romei, The Saturday Paper
- Ann Skea, Newtown Review of Books
- Heidi Maier, InReview
- Nicole Abadee, Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, ‘Top of the Pile/Father’s Day Reading Guide’
- Shannon Burns, Australian Book Review
‘While Corfu provides a picturesque setting — with its rustic villages, olive groves and "bays that cupped water clearer than the sky" — this is a memoir about fathers and sons. As a father, Gíslason is thoughtful and attentive — if a little over-protective, he admits — and explores this territory with curiosity, sincerity and sensitivity.’
- Nicola Heath, ABC News, ‘The Best New Books Released In August’
‘This memoir of an adventure at the age of eighteen really does have it all. Finding oneself, happiness, heartbreak, love, uncertainty and the joy of youthful adventure...The book is superbly written and not only is it easy to read, it is pleasure to read. The writing style is one of the best I have read this year...This is an enjoyable memoir for all to read, unputdownable. It is also one that anyone, whose teens are planning on taking a gap year, or adults planning one, should read. It is also good reading for parents developing harmonious relationships with their teens.’
‘This memoir of an adventure at the age of eighteen really does have it all. Finding oneself, happiness, heartbreak, love, uncertainty and the joy of youthful adventure...The book is superbly written and not only is it easy to read, it is pleasure to read. The writing style is one of the best I have read this year...This is an enjoyable memoir for all to read, unputdownable. It is also one that anyone, whose teens are planning on taking a gap year, or adults planning one, should read. It is also good reading for parents developing harmonious relationships with their teens.’
- Schooldays Magazine
‘An elegantly crafted and finely detailed memoir in which Gíslason recounts his trips to Corfu as a vulnerable teen and, decades later, as a father. The book is carefully structured via parallel narratives that express and exploit memoir’s inherent interest in the tension between the storied past and the remembering present.’
- Helen Gildfind, Good Reading Magazine
‘An elegantly crafted and finely detailed memoir in which Gíslason recounts his trips to Corfu as a vulnerable teen and, decades later, as a father. The book is carefully structured via parallel narratives that express and exploit memoir’s inherent interest in the tension between the storied past and the remembering present.’
- Helen Gildfind, Good Reading Magazine
- Jacinta Rossetto, Glass Magazine
‘Beautifully written prose.’
- Jaclyn Crupi, reviewer at Hill of Content Bookshop (Melbourne)
See also
McGuiness, Madison. ‘Remembering the Pirate: A quest to settle old debts on Corfu island,’ The Greek
Herald, 4 October 2024.
Interviews
Interviewed by Richard Fidler on ABC Conversations, 28 August 2024.
Interviewed by Rebecca Levingston on ABC Evenings, Brisbane, 30 July 2024.
Related
Gíslason, Kári. ‘Me and the Pirate,’ Weekend Australian Magazine, 31 August 2024.
Gíslason, Kári. ‘Dare a boys' own adventure,’ Escape, 1 September 2024.
Interviewed by Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh on ABC Radio National's The Bookshelf, 21
September 2024.
Odds and bobs
Pascoe, Alley, ed. ‘The bookshelf...sizzling reads hot off the press,’ The Australian Women's Weekly, 10 September 2024.
