Bon vivant Sophie Dahl gets bookish

NEW YORK — It seems somehow appropriate that a mischievous dog helped stop Roald Dahl's granddaughter from making a big writing mistake.

It happened when model-turned-author Sophie Dahl was composing her first full-length novel in longhand, on a legal pad. She thought it was more romantic that way — and the tone matched.

"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," she says. "It was bloody awful."

Thankfully, that's when a puppy — can't you just imagine it leaping from the pages her grandfather's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"? — destroyed the fledgling novel.

"In the morning, I came down and there was just confetti. The puppy had just ripped everything to shreds," says Dahl, 30. "I thought, 'OK. Fine. Start again.' "

What emerged is the semiautobiographical "Playing With the Grown-ups," which has earned some polite reviews for a young writer hoping to keep a third generation of Dahls in print.

The book captures the adolescence of a girl named Kitty, the precocious daughter of a stunning young artist — the kind of mother who shows up at a school play and leaves behind a "snaky trail of Mitsouko and some wobbly looking fathers."

Kitty's single mother is also a bit tragic. She's a hopeless romantic who puts on extravagant parties, cries at doves cooing on her windowsill — even when they're just city pigeons — and suffers from debilitating bouts of depression. Kitty grows up constantly on the move, from London to New York to a guru's ashram and back again, learning about boys and life. She matures into a head-turner and a bit of a hellcat.

The story line has piqued the interest of the British, who see parallels with the author's life. A beautiful mother who suffers from depression? Check: Dahl's mother is Tessa Dahl, a former actress-turned writer who had Sophie when she was 19 and has chronicled her own personal struggles.

What about the precocious daughter? Check: Sophie had a nomadic childhood that included 10 schools and 17 homes in New York, London and even an ashram. She also matured into a head-turner and a bit of a hellcat, one who reportedly dated Mick Jagger.

Dahl became a model when she was 18, a 6-foot, wide-eyed stunner whose nonheroin-chic curves became a tabloid staple. She hit star status after posing naked in an ad for Opium perfume, a campaign so racy it provoked protests in Britain and France.

Nan A. Talese, who released the book on her own Doubleday imprint, says Dahl's beauty can sometimes overshadow her skill with words.

"I'm just so keen for her to keep on writing because she has a remarkable insight into human nature, she has a great sense of humor and in this book she's certainly enormously forgiving," Talese says.

Dahl hopes Americans will enjoy her own debut without knowing all her back story. "Here, they're more interested in my genes than the size of my jeans," she says.