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

by Sarah Weinman

"In 1948, Sally Horner was just eleven years old when she was kidnapped by a man claiming to be an FBI agent. Seven years later, Vladimir Nabokov published Lolita, perhaps the most seminal novel of the twentieth century. Sarah Weinman's investigation into how the two are connected is a thrilling, heartbreaking mix of literary scholarship and true-crime writing."--back cover.

• ISBN10: 0062661922
• ISBN13: 9780062661920
• Publish Date: 11 September 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Ecco Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

Quick Impressions

Had I done to Dolly, perhaps, what Frank Lasalle, a fifty-year-old mechanic, had done to eleven-year-old Sally Horner in 1948?

The Real Lolita is eye-opening and a fascinating true crime novel.  While the novel does switch between Nabokov writing the book and the horror of Sally Horner "the real Lolita" I felt that the author's time was better spent on the latter.  However, as interesting as the story was, there wasn't a great deal of concrete writings during Sally's years in captivity so there was a bit of speculation in regard to their everyday life and thus made the book feel padded. Although, this is easy to overlook in the big scheme of things as overall the novel pulls you in with the atrocities that occurred to Sally Horner and the excellent detective work in Sarah Weinman's storytelling. The Real Lolita will break your heart and have you reaching for Lolita but this time with Sally Horner in mind.


This review was originally posted on First Impressions Reviews