There’s something oddly subversive about Roald Dahl. He is, after all, one of the most beloved children’s authors of the twentieth century, the architect of fantastical worlds where oversized peaches float across oceans and chocolate factories reveal the worst in human behavior.
But dig even a little beneath the surface, and Dahl becomes something far more complex. He was a war hero who crash-landed in the Libyan desert, a diplomat who mingled with American socialites, a man of contradictions with a pen sharper than most knives.
He didn’t just write stories. He had a life with more than its share of plot twists, the sort that wouldn’t look out of place in one of his own books.
What makes Dahl’s story so especially strange is the gap between how he is known and what his real life was like. To children, he is something akin to a mischievous grandfather who spins stories that make the world tilt on its side.
To grown-ups, particularly those who have looked more intently, he is a mix of brilliance, bitterness and breathtaking originality. He could be enchanting and venomous, generous and petty, sometimes all in the same letter.