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    The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World
    The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World
    The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World

    Written by Sarah Weinman

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    “The Real Lolita is a tour de force of literary detective work. Not only does it shed new light on the terrifying true saga that influenced Nabokov’s masterpiece, it restores the forgotten victim to our consciousness.” —David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon

    Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet, very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner.

    Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner’s full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita.

    Sally Horner’s story echoes the stories of countless girls and women who never had the chance to speak for themselves. By diving deeper in the publication history of Lolita and restoring Sally to her rightful place in the lore of the novel’s creation, The Real Lolita casts a new light on the dark inspiration for a modern classic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateSep 11, 2018
    ISBN9780062661951
    The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World
    Author

    Sarah Weinman

    Sarah Weinman is the author of Scoundrel and The Real Lolita and the editor, most recently, of Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession. She was a 2020 National Magazine Award finalist for reporting and a Calderwood Journalism Fellow at MacDowell, and her work has appeared in New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and the Washington Post. Weinman writes the crime column for the New York Times Book Review and lives in New York City and Northampton, MA.

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    Reviews for The Real Lolita

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    202 ratings17 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I enjoyed the scope covered by this book. I wish the author would be more specific on certain points. For instance, when she danced around the question of whether Nabokov based the book on Sally Horner's ordeal, or not. She never explained why this was so important to establish. What if he did? What he did not but actually crafted the novel Lolita independent of any true events? I wonder was she implying he is a s*xual deviant. Or can we conclude it anyway based on his background.
    • 2/5
      A highly speculative essay that didn't have enough material to become a book.

      I was propelled to read this book after binge listening to the Lolita Podcast (which i can't recommend enough), which analyses the book, the time, the reception of the work and how it was played out in the media, how it influenced our society and how the view shifted between its reception and nowadays critique/academic research, when we live with a lot more awareness about abuse situations.

      The beginning of the book was hard to listen to (i'm listening to the audio book) mainly because it presented a lot of American context that I didn't even felt I need or cared about, like the background from the main investigator of this case and other victims around the time. It didn't give me any feeling of the epoch that was lived by Sally Horner, it just seemed like spilled information to fill in pages.

      There's a double narrative attempt between telling the Story of Sally Horner and the time when Nabokov completed his novel. But both seem highly speculative, which is what bothers me the most. I was expecting a report, a true crime, an informed account and for many situations the author simply speculates at what would "might have happened". That makes me feel apprehensive about appropriating a victim's voice and romanticizing a tragedy. The truth is, we won't know more about Sally Horner, how she felt and how she lived. We shouldn't put words in her mouth. For that the author could just have written a fictive novel based on a true case and put her interpretation of the characters directly into a story.

      I'm still 25/31 chapters through, Sally is already dead, I have no idea what more material could she have on this matter, but i'll make an update when I finish the book. Other reviews have been helpful expressing my overall feeling about this book, so I recommend skimming through them before entering a 7hour speculative read a few articles could have saved you.


      ______________________________


      So ... i don't really understand where does the author stand in relation to Nabokov. Sometimes she seems to defend him, and sometimes she seems to judge him. What is most disconcerting is the lack of "search for truth" that you would expect in this kind of journalistic work. It's always assuming Nabokov was more worried that "people would find out about Sally Horner" because "than, his Genius would crumble down to pieces" when clearly he wanted people to know and research about her. The Nabokov couple answered directly that Lolita was inspired in many cases of Child Abuse, we all know it was being written before Sally Horner's abduction, and we all know Nabokov is heavily concerned with the representation of this type of traumatic experience. It's general knowledge that he was abused as a child and that his works often explore paedophilia, it's also widely known he never engaged in any behaviour at the time - so this all seems to be more of a processing of his own trauma than an evil Genius creating an unforgeable evil book and profiting of a dead girl.

      I was thinking perhaps this book was written long ago, in the 90's/early 2000's perhaps, and therefore it wasn't acquainted with the academical studies of Nabokov. For such a thorough investigation, which I am sure it was, there's a heavy lack of academical research when then, the author, wants to criticize Nabokov.

      I feel like this book tries to spread the false narrative that Nabokov "stole" Sally's story for his own profit and that is its biggest fault. The worst is the amount of youtubers I've seen covering Sally's story, most likely based on skimming this book, and assuming Lolita is the story of Sally and not Dolores.

      Last but not the least, I was expecting a book that told me the story of Sally Horner, not a pseudo biography of Nabokov. And although I appreciate it, because I've been seriously interested in him, I'm sure many people will feel like their time was severely wasted.

      It would be nice to see Sarah Weinman come up with a better resolution of her investigations. I've seen her work being praised and I have a couple of interviews saved to read. It was just...not ready to be a book
    • 4/5
      I've never understood the adoration for the novel Lolita and had no idea it was partially based on a true case. Nabokov had been drafting a story featuring a pedophile for decades and it was Sally Horner's experience that gave him the scaffolding on which to hang his novel. This is an engaging, heartbreaking, and quick read.

      I was happy to learn via Weinman's book that Nabokov's wife, Vera, was puzzled over readers not being concerned about the suffering and horror Lolita experienced.

    • 3/5
      I thought this book would be more about the Sally Horner kidnapping and less on the author of Lolita. This book is basically a love letter to the author while acknowledging that he used the horrors Horner went through without publicly admitting he had done so. When the case is compared to Sally Horner's kidnapping it is obvious that the author of Lolita blatantly used her abuse to his financial advantage.
    • 4/5
      Part true crime, part biography, this book examines the real-life abduction that inspired Nabokov's masterpiece, Lolita. Although the story had lived in Nabokov's mind for many years, there is no doubt that the tragic life and death of Sally Horner contributed much to the finer details of the novel.

      The author's main goal with this book is to untangle the novel and all its many other media impacts from the experience of the real-life girl whose abduction scandalized the country. The author delves deep into the records we have about her and does her level best to give her ownership of her own story. She was not just an exciting news item but a person and one with a tragically shortened existence.

      She also examines Nabokov's life and how he wrote the novel and what came after. This is a fascinating revelation and a very complex read. Who owns a story? Who has the right to profit from your life? These questions are delved into and examined as well.
    • 3/5
      This is more a comparison of books. It does tell a story in a. Backwards way..... If it was more of a solid timeline that would have been great bit it jumps back and forth a whole lot between 2 books
    • 5/5
      As per usual with most must reads, I have no plans to ever read Nabokov, and now this book confirms my issues with Lolita. It’s horrifying what this little girl went through and that her story is not remembered, and I mean both Sally Horner and the little girl (for she was a child) in Lolita. I hope that continued time will put Sally’s short life story out there more; and I hope people realize that no matter how beautiful the writing they’re drooling over is, they need to get over it and understand that there’s a real life story behind the words. Ugh I’m angry.
    • 5/5
      This is the true-crime that inspired one of the most beloved and disquieting novels written, yet the name of the the real-life victim is rarely known and her story never told.
      What Weinman has put right in this painstaking researched look at what really happened to Sally and how Nabokov became nearly as obsessed with following Sally's kidnapping as he was about catching butterflies.
      Proof that the truth behind how the much-loved prose came to be can be more chilling than the tale we are told.
    • 4/5
      A thorough delve into an atrocious crime that inspired an infamous novel, it is both an entertaining and enlightening read and an accomplishment in investigative reporting that never forgets or exploits Sally Horner, the young girl who survived great horror only to die tragically young.
    • 4/5
      While I've read a fictional novel about Sally Horner, I didn't really know how much of it had been fictionalized and how her story made it into Lolita - gaps this nonfiction account more than filled. Sally's experience gives new understanding to the classic novel and I appreciated how the author interwove Sally's story with the writing of Lolita. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who's read Lolita.
    • 3/5
      I had mixed feelings about this book. It was an interesting topic however the author admits that there is little information about what happened during the actual time Sally Horner was gone. There is also not much in the way of proof that this novel had anything to do with the writing of Lolita, or at least, I wasn't fully convinced. I understood the parallels that were drawn between the Sally Horner kidnapping and the Lolita story but may aren't a huge stretch. If you are wandering around with a child it makes sense to lie and say that child is yours. The fact that Sally Horner's kidnapper tried to pass Sally off as his daughter and the narrator in Lolita is the step father of the girl is, at best, a stretch. I think the author of Lolita researched a variety of kidnappings. Sally's was probably among them but I doubt he consciously tried to weave her story into his book.
      Furthermore, Sally Horner's story, while tragic, is not unique. There are many stories of women who have been kidnapped and held by evil men for evil purposes.
      I felt like the premise of this book was a stretch and perhaps there just wasn't enough information available.
    • 3/5
      THE REAL LOLITA by Sarah Weinman tells the true story of Sally Horner and shows again and again how that story influenced Vladimir Nabokov and his creation LOLITA.

      I can’t imagine a more tragic story than Sally Horner’s. She was kidnapped in New Jersey when she was just a child and repeatedly raped by a 50-year-old man for nearly 2 years before she was rescued at the other end of the country.

      This occurred in the 1950s, when Nabokov was writing LOLITA although under another title. He began the book but then was stuck and could not finish it until he read newspaper accounts about Sally Horner.

      Weinman proves that Lolita and Sally are the same little girl. She points out so many examples in Nabokov’s book, yet he denied many times that his fiction was based on truth.

      The problem I have with THE REAL LOLITA Is that Weinman is repetitive in the sections that discuss LOLITA. Plus, reading these sections is too much like reading academic papers. They get tedious.

      But Weinman does convince me that Lolita is Sally.
    • 3/5
      I have to admit, I was a little disappointed by this. Weinman seems bent on setting Nabokov up as some sort of villain for having gotten some inspiration out of this tragic real-life situation, when even she herself admits that he was working on the novel for several years before Sally was abducted, as well as building up to it for many more years prior in several of his earlier works. I couldn't say what she possibly has against him, but she tries repeatedly to portray him in the worst possible light. All she succeeds in doing, is irking me with her behavior, not his. Then, there's the fact that it feels like there wasn't enough substance for a whole book (this originally started as an article that was then expanded on) and so she tried to pad it out with extraneous info that has no bearing on anything. History of the town itself, some random mass shooting that happened there, light backstories on some lawyers and detectives working the case... it just really doesn't work well in the end; she'd have been better off making a somewhat shorter book sticking to the relevant info.

      On the positive side, the writing itself was fine, and I'm glad to have learned about Sally's awful ordeal and tragically short life, plus a small bit about Nabokov's penning of the Lolita.

      In all, this is not a book I'd really suggest anyone go read, unless they are a die-hard fan and haven't discovered this history elsewhere.
    • 3/5
      During the period when Vladimir Nabokov was writing his best-known work, a high profile criminal case was in the newspapers. Eleven-year-old Sally Horner was abducted and kept captive for twenty-one months by a man who told her he was an FBI agent. Her escape and return home were cause for much media attention at the time and, in The Real Lolita, author Sarah Weinman examines what happened to Sally Horner as well as what the Nabokovs were doing during that time, and what Nabokov knew about the case. She looks at the details of Horner's ordeal that made it into the novel, as well as the Nabokovs's denials that there was a connection. Weinman finishes up with the history of the novel's publication and of the subsequent movies and adaptations.

      This was an interesting book. Weinman was working with few hard facts and managed to make the most of it. I read the original long article she wrote on the subject and suspect that the material was more suited to an article than a book. Still, I enjoyed learning about Nabokov's life and work during his years in the United States and the photo of the author in shorts, marching along with a butterfly net was delightful. Weinman has put together a few anthologies of mid-century noir fiction and that is where her real strength lies, but this book was a diverting holiday read and there's no doubt that Weinman has an eye for interesting historical events.
    • 3/5
      This is two books in one in that Weinman through incredible detective work provides us with the full story of the kidnapping of and twenty-two month travels with Sally Horner by Frank La Salle while also showing how Vladimir Nabokov used parts of this tragic event to create his masterpiece, Lolita. While Nabokov claimed that the plot came from his imagination, he actually refers to the Horner case in the novel and the characters in his novel seem to share similar attributes to the Sally, La Salle and their actions while on the run across America.

      There is a great deal of biographical information included in the novel but not just about Horner and La Salle. We learn much about Sally's mother, sister, the detectives trying to find her, the prosecutor who was assigned the case, the woman who eventually convinced Sally to phone home and any other individuals that Weinman could track down.

      She includes information on the publication of the novel Lolita as well as the release of the several film versions that have been made.
    • 4/5
      Sarah Weinman's The Real Lolita is so entertainingly written, it is easy to overlook the fact that there is only very limited information is available about the title character.

      In the late 1940s drifter Frank LaSalle convinced eleven year old Sally Horner of Camden, NJ, that he was an FBI agent and that she would be in major trouble if she didn't accompany him on his cross-country travels. The young girl was sexually abused by the older man until she "aged out" of his depraved personal tastes. Unfortunately, she did not live very long after her rescue, so she never had a chance to tell her own story as an adult. The author gamely tries to fill the resultant gap in facts related to the time Sally spent with LaSalle with conjecture, tangential information about other crimes, and a discussion of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita, which may have drawn upon Sally's story in its similar plot (even though Nabokov refused to admit it). But there is no disguising that there are a giant holes in the middle of the Weinman's narrative. Despite its limitations, I enjoyed this attempt to recount the life of a lost girl. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      I received a free copy of The Real Lolita from Edelweiss Plus in exchange for a review! I never heard of Sally Horner and this book proves what a shame that is since her story inspired Lolita. Sarah describes Sally's ordeal of being kidnapped and abused for 2 years and how Nabokov came to learn about her story and used it to shape out Lolita. The author provides hard proof and comparisons that prove Sally's life influenced Lolita. There is bit of speculation and drawing conclusions about the timeline and actual events that kind of devalue the point of the book. The writing style could have been better and polished more because at times it read like a forced paper someone was assigned to do. Overall The Real Lolita is great if you like true crime or have read Lolita. I especially like that the author explains the misconceptions of Lolita and by comparing that story to Sally's, it can remind people the point of Lolita, but also kinda of messed up that Nabokov used Sally's story without officially admitting it was used and overshadowed experiences of a real girl in Lolita's position.