Posted: May 1, 2008, 5 a.m. EST
Supermodel-turned-book author Sophie Dahl – granddaughter of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” author Roald Dahl – says a puppy destroyed the lone manuscript of her first novel, and she’s happy about it.
“It was so childish but I found I was writing as I imagined a book should sound. I had this sort of rather grand voice. It wasn’t true,” Dahl said in an interview with the Associated Press. “It was bloody awful.
“In the morning, I came down and there was just confetti. The puppy had just ripped everything to shreds,” says the British-born Dahl. “I thought, ‘OK. Fine. Start again.’”
The book that emerged from the near-disaster is Dahl’s semiautobiographical “Playing with the Grown-ups,” a coming-of-age story about a precocious girl named Kitty who travels the world with her beautiful, yet troubled, mother.
Nan A. Talese, Dahl’s Doubleday publisher, says Dahl’s supermodel status makes it hard for people to accept her writing talent.
“I’m just so keen for her to keep on writing because she has a remarkable insight into human nature, and she has a great sense of humor,” Talese says.
“Playing with the Grown-ups” is in bookstores now.