Do you know Roald Dahl?

In fifth grade my teacher read aloud to us The BFG. I was swept along with Sophie to Giant Country, where I hung on every stranger word the BFG (Big Friendly Giant) said, where I learned the origin of dreams: giants mix them up and blow them threw a trumpet into the ears of children. Mrs. Brown moved from this magical tale to James and the Giant Peach and I was smitten. An adventure inside an enormous fruit, with insects for companions and batty aunts as villains? This author writes of imaginary worlds with such conviction I sware he has visited them. They must exist.

Then today my sister sends me this article. It turns out Dahl's writings did not start out as works of fantastic whimsey. As James Parker writes in Slate's article, Dahl once wrote of "a woman who beats her husband to death with a frozen leg of lamb, then defrosts the murder weapon and serves it to the investigating police officers('Lamb to the Slaughter')."

The strange thing is that while Dahl's writing became lighter and more fantastic, his life took dark and twisted turns. In 1961, the year he published James and the Giant Peach, his son was injured when his carriage was hit by a taxi. The following year his daughter died of measles. In 1965 his wife, actress Patricia Neal, had a stroke while she was pregnant, and Dahl began the long road nursing her back to health.

We know our lives affect what we write. We know change in ourselves affect our writing, for better or worse. This man was a magician with a pen to me. I didn't realize he was so human. But that doesn't make his books any less wonderful.