All the pieces are in place for Sophie Dahl to be one of those obnoxious models we love to loathe: a famous lineage, a chance discovery by a modeling agent, the freedom to eat chocolate and remain a supermodel, and now a book deal. It’s not right to hate her, but it’s not hard either.
You’ve probably heard of Dahl’s grandparents, Academy Award-winning actress Patricia Neal and children’s book author Roald Dahl, writer of "James and the Giant Peach" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Ms. Dahl’s mother is a writer as well, but this solid intellectual pedigree was no match for the sheen of the fabulous life.
The story of her discovery goes something like this: Sophie, 18, after a fight with her mother, is crying in the street in front of her home when eccentric British style maven Isabella Blow floats by. Stopping to comfort the crying girl, Blow is struck by her beauty. Moments later, the magic words are spoken and Sophie joins the roster of Storm modeling agency; she is whisked on her way to superstardom as a pioneering British plus-sized model (nude Opium billboards, anyone?). She ascends quickly, proving to be a welcome exception to the starvation aesthetic wrapping its spindly limbs around the industry at the time.
Eventually, Dahl lost weight as proudly as she carried it, but that led to a fashion-world backlash. Unperturbed, she continued to live glamorously and somehow found time for the serious stuff that her childhood dreams had been made of: writing. She’s since published articles and short stories but saved the meat for her first novel. In "Playing with the Grown-Ups," Dahl crafts the family drama of a bourgeois bohemian upbringing that spanned continents. It’s full of echoes of Dahl’s past, but with levity that belies the serious subject matter.
Should I be asking what led a model to write, or have you really always been a writer who ended up modeling? Oh lord, I’ve always written slyly, but the modeling was the first thing I actually got paychecks for. Actually, not strictly true—I was a really bad waitress first, and a nanny after that. I wrote because I grew up around storytellers, and they filled my head with a love for words, [but] I modeled because someone spotted me on a street and I thought it sounded preferable to secretarial school.
Was "Playing with the Grown-Ups" brewing during this accidental career in fashion? The title occurred to me first; I was about 19. The actual book didn’t happen until I was in my late 20s. I was fascinated by the unbelievable loyalty children have to their parents, even if they are hugely complicated. I wanted to write a book that explored both that and the funny secret world of adolescence. I’ve always loved adolescent protagonists.
Did you find it difficult to mine your adolescence for material?It was interesting to cast back, to think about music, love, about jeans being too long or too short, and that palpable memory of a first bottle of scent. I got to have these very luxurious, nostalgic conversations with people I’ve know for years and years. All of that was a fantastic backbone, but there was something very liberating also about creating people from scratch. That’s the beauty of fiction: You don’t have to worry about being sued by your sixth-grade geography teacher.
Did the fame of close family members earlier in your life ever make you wary of seeking celebrity? It’s something I try not to take on board, as it’s a bit of a minefield. The nice thing about members of my family who were or are famous is that they genuinely loved what they did and truly, truly didn’t give a shit about the trappings of fame. Their chosen thing brought them great pleasure. I just wanted to do something that made me happy and be capable at it.
What are you looking to explore in future work? Crime fiction. Archaeology. I might wait a while before writing another tale of a broad eccentric Scandinavian family.
Sophie Dahl reads from “Playing with the Grown-Ups” at Book Soup in West Hollywood, Sat., April 12, at 7 p.m. She'll probably sign your book, but she likely will not agree to marry you. Just sayin'.
