Teller of the Unexpected

Devotes a large chunk of his book to Dahl's Norwegian family and schooldays; their combination of warmth, tragedy, inspiration and savagery is brilliantly evoked... [His account] makes you feel grudging admiration for a bully whose self-belief was, in a way, heroic * Sunday Times * Superb psychological study of a literary genius... Matthew Dennison's biography of Roald Dahl manages to peel back the layers of an infamously complex man * Sunday Business Post * Matthew Dennison's streamlined text clips along with an economy befitting Dahl's brusque manner... Dennison presents a rounded picture [...] and gets to Dahl's flawed, human core * Country Life * A well-researched, compact book * Observer * This book is riveting, and immaculately written * Sunday Telegraph * Brace yourself for Dahl mania... Documenting the multi-layered life of Roald Dahl as a creative maverick who created some of the most well-loved characters in literature, this biography reevaluates Dahl by examining his surviving relics * Tatler * A crisply done and well-judged survey of the outline of the life * TLS * [An] impeccably balanced new biography * Mail on Sunday * An intriguing read about a vastly talented but morally weak man * The Anglo-Celt * Dennison recasts the narrative of the daredevil pilot and spy-turned-author as a rule-breaker, romantic and ultimately a child's friend * School House * An elegant new biography… capturing [Dahl’s] grandiose, tragedy-specked life. * The New York Times *