The Pirate
Will be published approx. on 25. February 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-941920-20-6 (ISBN)
Description
"An Icelandic-punk version of Catcher in the Rye." -- Dallas Morning News "If there were more people like Jon Gnarr the world wouldn't be in such a mess."-- Oliver Sacks The second book in a trilogy chronicling the troubled childhood of international sensation Jon Gnarr, The Pirate revisits his teenage years with sincere compassion and great humor: bullied relentlessly, Jon receives rebellious inner strength through the Sex Pistols and Prince Kropotkin--punk rock and anarchy offer the promise of a better and more exciting life. Jon Gnarr, the most famous comedic actor in Iceland, founded the Best Party, ran for mayor of Reykjavik as a joke and won, and served as mayor of Reykjavik 2010-2014, in the process becoming an international sensation and symbol of true alternatives to the political process worldwide.
Reviews / Votes
"Anyone who felt like the outcast in school, in indefinable limbo between jock, bookworm, stoner, or class clown, yet still shunned and excluded and on your own planet, will identify with The Pirate. In fact, it will make you relive those days in a way that brings all of those insecurities and triumphs vividly back to life." -- Doug Stanhope "Jon Gnarr may be best known as the comedian who became mayor of Reykjavik, but he also impresses with his writing. The Pirate recounts his teen years and punk rock's influence on his life." -- David Gutkowski, Largehearted Boy "In my opinion this is one of the most remarkable books to have come out in the last year...Teenagers should read this book, without question...I thought it was simply wonderful." -- Kolbrun Bergthorsdottir, Kiljan (Icelandic National TV) "Here we are a delivered a furious mind racing to process and understand in order to solve the riddle of his perpetual position as outsider... Those who found punk as a refuge in their troubled teens and twenties will delight in thinking through our experiences while reading... Give it a read and remember your first all-age hardcore matinee show." -- Brandon Gray Miller, Professor, SMU "The language is reminiscent even of Thorbergur Thordarson, with his clarity and simplicity. I also find the history of punk in this book very interesting." -- Sigurdur Valgeirsson, Icelandic National TV "He's a bit of a genius, that Jon." -- Egill Helgason, Kiljan (Icelandic National TV) "A heartfelt and searing tale of bullying, rebellion and the search for a place to belong in the world. A story that genuinely touches the reader." -- Fridrika Benonysdottir, Frettabladid "...[The Pirate] plainly shows the destructive effects of prejudice and how a lack of realistic options and willingness to understand the boy is soul-destroying and dangerous...The strength of The Pirate, the second volume of Jon's memoirs, is its sincerity: the boy's point of view and the narration shaped by his inner voice." -- Frida Bjork Ingvarsdottir, Vidsja (National Broadcasting Station) "A dark memoir full of black humor that details the author's painful experiences as a child unable to fit in due to struggling with learning and emotional disorders, [The Indian] illuminates the struggles that come from being considered broken. Written with cleverly shifting points of view, this haunting narrative invites readers to consider the trauma of an outcast child." -- World Literature Today, on The Indian "[The Pirate] is a highly readable book, enormously powerful and particularly heartfelt. ...A book not soon forgotten." -- Kolbrun Bergthorsdottir, Morgunbladid "By turns funny and despairing (Gnarr had ADHD and severe dyslexia as a child), as well as providing a glimpse into Icelandic culture beyond Bjork, The Indian is entertaining and enlightening." -- Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Critic's Pick, on The Indian) "Hypnotic and heartbreaking...Let 'normal' people have their 'normal' heroes. The rest of us have Jon Gnarr, and the world's a better place for it." -- Michael Schaub, NPR, on The Indian "Gnarr's finest accomplishment in [The Indian], surpassing others in the genre, is the absolute immediacy of the childhood experience...Gnarr returns those emotions--all the emotions of childhood--to their context, adding the suffering of learning them, finding new restrictions, fearing ones you don't know, and we relate to them once again." -- P.T. Smith, Three PercentMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Texas
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 208 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
281 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-941920-20-6 (9781941920206)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
Jon Gnarr was born in 1967 in Reykjavik. He formed the Best Party in 2009 and became the mayor of Reykjavik in 2010. His acting work includes the movies The Icelandic Dream and A Man Like Me and the television series The Night Shift, which aired on BBC4. As a child, Gnarr was diagnosed with severe mental retardation due to dyslexia, learning difficulties, and ADHD. He nevertheless overcame his hardships and went on to become one of Iceland's most well-known actors and comedians, and published the first two volumes in his fictionalized autobiography in 2006, The Indian, and 2009, The Pirate (the third volume, The Outlaw will be published in Iceland in fall 2015--Deep Vellum will publish the trilogy in full in 2015-2016). In late 2009 Gnarr formed the joke Best Party with a number of friends with no background in politics. The Best Party, which was a satirical political party that parodied Icelandic politics and aimed to make the life of the citizens more fun, managed a plurality win in the 2010 municipal elections in Reykjavik, and Gnarr became Major of Reykjavik (there's a great documentary on Gnarr's campaign, which introduces you to Gnarr's unique and inspiring personality, called Gnarr). His term as mayor ended in June 2014 and he plans to use his post-mayor years to continue writing and speaking on issues that are most important to him: freedom of speech, human rights, protecting the environment, and achieving international peace. Now that his term as mayor is complete, he has moved to Texas to focus on writing, speaking on issues he holds most dear (world peace, sexual and gender equality, freedoms for writers and journalists), and performing stand-up comedy again. Lytton Smith (born 1982) is an Anglo-American poet and translator. His most recent poetry collection is The All-Purpose Magical Tent (Nightboat Books, 2009), which was selected by Terrance Hayes for the Nightboat Books Poetry Prize in 2009, and was praised by Publishers Weekly in a starred review as "...fantastic and earthy, strange and inherited, classical and idiosyncratic, at once." He also has a previous chapbook, Monster Theory, selected by Kevin Young for the Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship in 2008. Additionally, Smith's poetry has appeared in a number of prominent literary journals and magazines such as The Atlantic, Boston Review, Tin House, and many others. Lytton Smith was born in Galleywood, England. He moved to New York City, where he became a founder of Blind Tiger Poetry, an organization dedicated to promoting contemporary poetry. He has taught at Columbia University, Fordham University, and Plymouth University, and is currently a professor at SUNY-Oneonta. He has translated two other novels from Icelandic: The Ambassador, by Bragi Olafsson (Open Letter 2010) and Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristin Omarsdottir (Open Letter, 2012).