THe language and structure really have the traits of a traditional Dahl story except this is non-fiction and his life. If it is true that all fiction is to some extent based on autobiographical reality, then Roald Dahl’s grotesque and macabre works and characters can easily be viewed as traceable back to his youth. The stories which make up this volume and the one immediately preceding which details an often horrific childhood spent among sadistic adults and kids at boarding school all retroactively point forward to an prodigious output of fiction informed by cruel adults, spoiled kids, animals, airplanes and naked adults. Every single one of which recurs persistently throughout the works of Roald Dahl.