The Real Lolita

Who was Sally Horner? And to what extent did Vladimir Nabokov base his famous novel LOLITA directly on Sally's tragic story? These are the questions that Sarah Weinman explores through intense research and excellent writing. Narrator Cassandra Campbell's experience with narrating both fiction and nonfiction is put to good use as she conveys the factual details uncovered by Weinman's research and interviews. The reimagined story of Sally Horner's life is presented in a Truman Capote style of re-creating the emotions and potential motivations of the real-life characters. Listeners may find themselves intrigued by Horner's story. But if they're not interested in Nabokov and LOLITA, they may question Weinman's obsessive inquiry. E.Q. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

June 11, 2018
Journalist and editor Weinman (Women Crime Writers) combines literary theory and true crime in this speculative account of the 1948 kidnapping of Sally Horner, an 11-year-old New Jersey girl who Weinman posits was the real-life inspiration for Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel. Sally Horner, like Nabokov’s Dolores Haze, was abducted and taken across state lines by a pedophile who passed himself off as her father in public and abused her in private. Weinman chronicles the details of what is known about Sally’s life during the nearly two years she spent captive with her abductor, Frank La Salle, before recounting her harrowing rescue and La Salle’s trial and conviction for kidnapping. Alongside Sally’s narrative, Weinman looks at Nabokov’s process writing Lolita, which he agonized over for years and twice nearly destroyed. The book includes a few odd digressions and a fair amount of conjecture (“Perhaps Sally wondered why they were going so far out of their way.... Maybe she asked why they had to leave Atlantic City so quickly. Most likely, she kept any complaints or questions to herself”). More poignantly, Weinman argues that Nabokov and his wife, Véra—who served as her husband’s spokesperson and flatly denied the use of Sally’s story as inspiration for his novel—allowed Sally to be eclipsed by her fictional counterpart: Sally’s life had been “strip-mined to produce the bones of Lolita.” Drawing from interviews with relatives of those involved, Nabokov’s personal documents, and court reporting from La Salle’s trial, Weinman tells Sally’s tragic story as it has never been told before, with sensitivity and depth.

Starred review from August 1, 2018

In 1948, 11-year-old New Jersey schoolgirl Sally Horner was kidnapped by a man who claimed to be an FBI agent. That man, pedophile Frank La Salle, held Sally in captivity, posing as her father, for nearly two years. Her dramatic escape was covered in most major news outlets. During this time, a Russian émigré was working sporadically on a novel and climbing the academic ladder at U.S. Ivy League schools, heading west to hunt butterflies in the summertime. Several years after Sally's rescue and the imprisonment of La Salle, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was published. Crime writer and editor Weinman uses her research skills to connect Sally's story with Nabokov's controversial novel--a connection that Nabokov denied but Weinman disproves point by point. Nabokov, easier to research but perhaps more cunning, left hints and riddles in the text of his novel and in his notes that point to Sally Horner. VERDICT This intricate balance of journalism and cultural critique is perfect for historical crime readers, feminist scholars, victims' rights advocates, and literature lovers. Recommended as a squirm-inducing read-along with Nabokov's novel. [See "Editors' Fall Picks," p. 29.]--Liz French, Library Journal

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2018
True crime meets classic American literature.Lolita wasn't always considered the great work of literature it has become. Journalist Weinman (editor: Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s and '50s, 2015, etc.), who covers the book publishing industry for Publishers Marketplace, describes the struggles Vladimir Nabokov endured trying to find a publisher for his novel about Humbert Humbert's desire for and abduction of the young Lolita until the notorious Olympia Press published it overseas in 1955. Weinman also recounts the story of journalist Peter Welding's 1963 article in the men's magazine Nugget. He argued that the story of 11-year-old Sally Horner's abduction in 1948 by mechanic Frank La Salle, who claimed for 12 months that she was his daughter, paralleled the Lolita story "much too closely to be coincidental." Weinman's book is about her quest to "figure out what [Nabokov] knew about Sally Horner and when he knew it." Nabokov always denied any real-life influences. Like any good detective, Weinman visited the places Sally visited, talked to people who knew her and La Salle, and visited the schools Sally attended. At times, the author relies on her imagination to re-create Sally's story: Did Sally imagine escaping; did she pray? In alternating chapters, Weinman recounts the 20-year genesis of Nabokov's novel, which "emerged piecemeal." She explores how he and his wife often traveled the country, staying at motels and searching for butterflies, all the while composing Lolita on index cards. The author also draws attention to an August 1952, newspaper article about Sally's death at 15 and the notes Nabokov took about it. Here, she writes, "is proof that her story captured his attention." Ultimately, "Lolita's narrative...depended more on a real-life crime than Nabokov would ever admit."A tantalizing, entertaining true-life detective and literary story whose roots were hidden deep in a novel that has perplexed and challenged readers for decades.

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August 1, 2018
Not only did true-crime expert Weinman find Sally Horner's nearly two-year ordeal as the captive of a child molester and rapist grimly compelling and sharply indicative of social ills, she also felt provoked by its rarely commented on role in a controversial American masterpiece. Weinman recounts with spine-straightening directness how she dug into every archive and pursued every lead to learn more about Sally and her family in Camden, New Jersey; about kidnapper and child rapist Frank La Salle; and about how he masqueraded as Sally's father in communities across the country in 1948 and 1949 until she escaped. Weinman was equally zealous in her quest to learn what Vladimir Nabokov knew about the Horner case during his long struggle to write Lolita (1955). Weinman points out the many parallels between the novel and Sally's life (so cruelly shortened after her rescue?she was just 15 when she died), while chronicling Nabokov's own cross-country journeys, writing habits, and denial of the Horner connection. Weinman's sensitive insights into Horner's struggle play in stunning counterpoint to her illuminations of Nabokov's dark obsession and literary daring, and Lolita's explosive impact.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)