A real Dahl

Most people are walking contradictions, but the writer Roald Dahl perhaps more than most, as Nadia Cohen shows us in her enlightening biography The Real Roald Dahl (2018).

The author of so many popular children's books lived an R-rated life. As a young man he attracted older women, most of them married and famous. Cohen tells how he once attended a movie premiere with actress Nancy Carroll and left with Congresswoman Clare Booth Luce, both women married and much older. Later he left his wife for a younger woman.

Although one of the most kind and generous of men, he also loved an argument and could be insufferably rude, even to guests at his own parties.

Although a literary man with no medical training, his pioneering efforts led to the invention of the Dahl-Wade-Till Valve used to save the lives of nearly 3,000 children around the world. This work was inspired by the brain damage suffered by his son, Theo.

Brain damage became a strange and tragic family curse. He had suffered head injuries as a pilot in World War II. His wife, actress Patricia Neal, had a brain-damaging stroke. His daughter Olivia died from a brain injury. Another daughter had a brain tumor.

Through it all Dahl wrote James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and other gems that children have loved for generations.