His father’s eyes

Kári Gíslason’s memoir of escape and adventure during his early adulthood begins in transit: he is freshly eighteen, ‘sleeping on the floor next to hot air vents at the back of a grand old ferry that connected Brindisi in the heel of Italy with Athens’. Kári is travelling with an ‘often-jolly, sometimes sarcastic’ Scotsman named Paul, and their relationship has begun to fray. Worse, they are low on money, which means their travels and ‘freedom’ may soon be over. Gíslason notes: ‘We were unemployable. I was sickly thin, and my hair past my shoulders and knotted. Paul always looked like he’d just woken up.’ Both are searching for ways to forget their troubles and orient themselves as they take the first steps into manhood, but the pressures that come with such a task have left them feeling oppressed and alienated.

Fortunately, a woman who runs a tourist hostel in Corfu offers to take them in and helps them to find work. They can repay her later. This is a consistent theme of Running with Pirates: the people of Corfu are generous with their hospitality, offering shelter, food, employment, and friendship, with one exception: ‘They lock away their girls as though they’re some kind of fragile possessions that need to be kept safe.’