Storyteller—The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl
By Donald Sturrock (Simon & Schuster, 2011; 672 pages)

It’s a big book, and a detailed one. There’s a neat description of a wad of foil chocolate wrappers which Dahl had pressed into an orb “between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball” and used to show off to his friends.
But given Roald Dahl’s varied output, unapologetically nasty reputation and old-school sexist-and-classist personal life, one wished for a book that isn’t so… steady.

Sure, this is the “authorized” biography, but so was David Michaeilis’ Schulz & Peanuts, which allowed lots of leeway for scandal and analysis. Dahl is dead, as are most of the people who could claim to be offended by some of the revelations here. What happens actually is that when the bio loosens up and starts behaving like a Road Dahl novel, characters come to life. Congresswoman/playwright Clare Booth Luce as a sex-crazed adultress? Ian Fleming admitting his own deficiencies as an author, and justifying his fondness for that “ugly stuff,” money? Walt Disney as cold businessman discussing the allure of gremlins?

Taking a tip from the economical Dahl learned in his slam-bang short stories and chaotic yet well-charted children’s chapter books, this weighty and sluggish bio should have been half the length and twice the pace, with all the qualifying statements cut out. Dahl was clearly a let-the-chips-fall kind of guy. Donald Sturrock spends too much time walking carefully behind him and picking up the chips.