Ahoy! 'Pirates' is compelling, if bumpy, voyage

Gwen Needle is not your run-of-the-mill teen rebel.

While most kids in the throes of puberty will act out in predictable ways — smoking a joint behind the school cafeteria, or snagging a six-pack from Dad's man cave — the 14-year-old heroine (if you can call her that) of Daniel Handler's new novel opts to become a swashbuckling, modern-day pirate.

Or at least as well as any hotheaded, impulsive teenager can hope to. As Gwen and her united band of hoodlums learn, it's not so easy being kings and queens of the high seas when you're on a stolen boat off the coast of San Francisco.

But that's only part of what makes We Are Pirates such an engaging, if at times frustrating, read. Best known to young readers as Lemony Snicket (the A Series of Unfortunate Events series), Handler juggles the dual perspectives of Gwen and her father, Phil, who are at wildly different points in their humdrum lives, but share a kindred sense of adventure. And for the most part, he succeeds.

When she's not lusting after a boy on her swim team or fretting over her appearance, Gwen indulges in a shoplifting habit — well, at least she tries to, until she gets caught her first go-around and is forced to volunteer with an elderly Alzheimer's patient, Errol, as her penance. Meanwhile, once-hotshot radio producer Phil is hoping to reinvigorate his career with a new radio show, and travels to Los Angeles with his attractive young assistant to pitch an idea to industry bigwigs.

Pirates develops a darkly comic rhythm as it moves along, scoring some laugh-out-loud moments in the minutiae of Phil's everyday life (absurd passages about a shoplifted adult magazine and flying to L.A. on a dinky airline are particularly humorous). And Gwen's burgeoning relationships with Errol and her defiant friend, Amber, are oddly sweet — that is, until Pirates takes a number of unexpectedly grim turns in its second half, where the novel tends to lose its sea legs.

While we're no strangers to youngsters doing horrifying things — we've all read Lord of the Flies, after all — the heinous acts of Gwen and her young friends seemingly come out of left field, and before we get a chance to see how they come to terms with their violent marauding, the book abruptly ends. Story lines involving Phil, his wife and (possible?) mistress are also left open-ended.

Which, as odd as it sounds, could be a testament to the intriguing, if often unlikable, characters Handler has drawn.

We Are Pirates is an incredibly brisk read, and is near impossible to put down once you get into it. And while we have no clue who the intended audience is — very mature youngsters or highly juvenile adults, we'd have to guess — we appreciate how bold and strange he dares to get. We only wish it all came to a more satisfying end.

Fingers crossed, Handler will plunder these protagonists for future, plank-walking yarns.

We Are Pirates

By Daniel Handler

Bloomsbury

3 stars out of four