Running with Pirates

At the age of 18, I travelled to the island of Corfu after a life-altering encounter with my father in Iceland. Looking for adventure, I decided to stay after meeting ‘the Pirate’, a mysterious Greek stranger who offered me work – only to find myself eventually fleeing the island, leaving behind a debt I promised to repay.

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

‘Heart-breaking, joyful, tender. The full catastrophe: Greece and life, in all its pain and glory.’ 

          - Susan Johnson

‘A unique and captivating contemplation of sons and fathers, and of boys in the act of becoming men.’

          - Nick Earls

Reviews and features

‘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.’

          - 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 

‘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.’

          - 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

‘Kári Gíslason writes beautifully and thoughtfully, and Running with Pirates is a rich and vivid tale of a period in his life when his experiences on Corfu not only shaped his view of the world but made him think carefully about the way he and his wife would bring up their sons.’

          - Ann Skea, Newtown Review of Books

‘In unravelling the life-long effects of events that occurred in his youth, the two narrative threads are deftly, richly written and expertly interwoven and interlinked by the older Gislason’s reflections on his younger self. ... While the trip is coloured by nostalgia for the past, Gislason never falters in recollecting and examining what was, never lapsing into overt or mawkish sentimentality. This is both to his credit and a fundamental part of what makes the telling of his story so enormously emotional. This is a writer who understands the power of language and the fallible, ever-evolving nature of the father-son bonds he is describing.’

          - Heidi Maier, InReview

‘A powerful meditation on reconnecting with our younger selves and a father’s love for his sons.’

          - Nicole Abadee, Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, ‘Top of the Pile/Father’s Day Reading Guide’

‘Gíslason evokes a strong sense of place and is wonderfully attuned to the sensitivities of early adulthood.’

          - 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'

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.