Of all the things I thought might happen in my life, my name being spoken by a movie star on stage at the Royal Court Theatre and my voice portrayed by a leading actor wasn’t high on the list. But it happened earlier this year, when John Lithgow starred as Roald Dahl in Giant by Mark Rosenblatt. The reviews were outstanding, and I had the pleasure of spending time with Lithgow and the rest of the stellar cast.
My connection to Dahl goes back to 1983 when as a young journalist working for the New Statesman, I was asked to interview Dahl after he’d written a review of a book called God Cried, an account of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. But rather than an objective discussion he wrote of “a race of people” who had “switched so rapidly from victims to barbarous murderers”, and that the US was “so utterly dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions” that “they dare not defy” Israel.
The telephone interview began with me telling him I was a fan of his work and then asking about what he’d written. With no change of tone, he began, “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity. Maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews”, and then, “I mean, there's always a reason why 'anti-anything' crops up anywhere. Even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason.” And more of the same.
My interview was published in the New Statesman. There was some controversy and shock, but this was before social media and 24-hour news, and the entire incident seemed to pass within a week. It didn’t pass me of course, and I’ve never forgotten what he said and how I felt.
The play has changed all that of course, and I’m confident that it will transfer to New York, perhaps Toronto. The entire incident is covered in my book, and the more I thought about it as I was writing Heaping Coals, the more I realized how such an encounter with someone I’d previously admired left a bruise that has never quite disappeared. Writing an autobiography does that – opens wounds, obliges the author to look at things in a new light. It was not an easy book to write, and I’ve a feeling that if it had been I would have failed at my task.
Michael Coren is the author of seventeen books, four of them bestsellers, published in twelve languages. An award-winning columnist, he is also ordained in the Anglican Church of Canada. He lives in Toronto. Learn more here.