Roald Dahl's darkest hour

...
Most significant of all, 1960 was the year that Dahl – who already had two daughters, Olivia, five, and Tessa, three – became the father of a strapping young son. Theo Matthew Roald was born on July 30, and the arrival of an exotic new male in this family of women was the cause of both excitement and fascination. “He has a pair of testicles the size of walnuts and a sharp wicked penis,†Dahl wrote a fortnight after his birth. Another progress report was despatched three days afterwards: “He’s a fine nipper, and his circumcised tool (now healed) glows with promise, like the small unopened bud of some exotic flower.â€

Weeks later, the Dahls’ summer idyll was over. On October 1, they boarded a “ghastly Boeing jet†to spend another winter in New York. Dahl’s love affair with Manhattan was becoming ever more jaundiced. He viewed it as a violent place, filled with threats and danger. One day from his window he watched a tall boy with a “tense white face†running through traffic. Dahl identified with the youth. It seemed he was a kind of prophet, warning him that catastrophe was around the corner...

Roald Dahl's darkest hour - Telegraph