We Are Pirates
Daniel Handler, 2015
288 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
February, 2015
A dark, quirky, and ultimately exuberant book, We Are Pirates combines elements of Lord of the Flies with Peter Pan's Lost Boys. In it, a band of troubled souls—three teens, an Alzheimer patient, and a Haitian care giver—model themselves after 18th-century pirates and set off to plunder San Francisco Bay.
They're intent on rebellion and on reclaiming the happiness they believe was stolen from them. But what starts out as a romantic pirate adventure goes inexplicably, horribly wrong.
A parallel storyline follows Phil Needle, father of Gwen, initiator of the pirate exploit. He, too, seeks the outlaw life, hoping to break out of his middling career as a radio producer. Like his daughter he's beaten down by the humdrum of life, its restrictions, and the thousands of pin pricks delivered every day.
Daniel Handler, author of the famed Lemony Sniket series, has written a lively, madcap novel for adults. As usual, Handler can be depended on for a playful narrative style—a penchant for wordplay, time shifts, points of view that bleed into one another, and in this case, the abundance of "pirate" idioms that have found their way into everyday language.
The novel, though, is not without its problems. The lead-up to the pirate launch is painstakingly long—occupying the first-half of the book. Second, none of the characters is terribly likable, which can make it hard to care about the outcome. And, finally, the eruption of violence, when it comes, feels excessive and unnecessary, even at odds with the characters—who are are not inherently violent people. But maybe that's Handler's point: our rage and violent impulses may be hidden, but they lie just beneath the surface.
In the end, when all is said and done, Gwen learns remorse, which now seems to calm her rage:
She was sorry for everything. Sorry teachers and coaches. Sorry friends and enemies. Sorry for those who died and for those who mourned them, sorry for anyone who lost their home or their wife or their husband or their children.... I am so sorry.
And Phil, who fears he had lost his daughter for good, comes to learns that life has its compensations after all:
All the happiness in the world, all that was denied him, had come into his possession at last, pouring onto him like water on a drowning man.
If you're a pirate at heart, if you're daring and rogue, this is a super read. It poses a fundamental question: can ordinary life bring us happiness? Or must we be outlaws, standing outside societal boundaries, to find our buried treasure? And that begs the questions: what is our buried treasure—and where should we look for it?
See our Reading Guide for We Are Pirates.