The Real Lolita

The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World

By: Sarah Weinman

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

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 11-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.

©2018 Sarah Weinman (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

“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)

Great for Lovers of True Crime and Lolita

Fans of Nabokov's Lolita and true crime will both find something here. It's a quick read/listen and details are all too scarce about what actually happened to Sally Horner, but the author does her best with the sources at her disposal.

Also helps as a reminder of what a monster Nabokov's anti-hero really is. In fact, while I say it's good for Lolita fans, those fans who see Delores as a seductress and HH as a real hero will probably feel uncomfortable with this book.

Disappointing

The narrator does only an ok job. Her attempt at character voices failed. However, that was tolerable. What was really problematic was the writing....it bounced all over the place with no real fluid flow of the story. Not only that, but there was a great deal of unnecessary commentary about supporting subjects within the story. It seems as if this was done to fill up time and space....fluff. It became aggravating. I wouldn't recommend this book.

A great story, but contains “a shimmer of errors”

Contrary to what the author purports about most “Lolita” fans, I was familiar with Sally Horner’s story prior to reading this book. I enjoyed the expanded history of the events surrounding Horner’s kidnapping, and the story of how “Lolita”’s penmanship unfolded. Weinman makes a compelling case for Nabokov’s knowledge of Horner’s story, and indeed, I think it is likely he knew more about Sally than he ever let on.

However, having read “Lolita” several times, I was dismayed by several glaring errors about the novel’s text. Such obvious mistakes cannot help but make me worry whether there are other problems with the text that I didn’t catch, not knowing the history of Horner, LaSalle, Nabokov, and other real-life characters. Perhaps, the book will be revised in the future, to correct any other mishaps.

Nah BOH kov

Fascinating story, though i was constantly pulled from the story every time the narrator said Na BOH kov instead of Nab oh KOV. Teeny Tiny little gripe. loved everything else

The parallels are striking, but…

…there were several other cases that somewhat paralleled the plot and story of Lolita. Nabokov had been working on the novel that became Lolita for decades before he read about Sally Horner and the pedophile who abducted her. Still, the author writes in depth about Nabokov’s struggle to write and publish the novel, and the sad story of Sally Horner. So it’s worth reading from that standpoint.

Good back story information but her conclusion is wrong

Sally Horner’s story is closely similar to Lolita’s but the author here gave lots of evidence that Nabokov has been working on this theme long before Horner

So that’s truth behind the fiction.

Great research and tying of the revelations to the story. Enjoyed how Weinman links Nabokov’s plots to incidents reported in the press about Sally, the real victim from Camden, New Jersey. The citation of diary entries and earlier writings demonstrate that Nabokov tried for many years to fashion a story premised on an older man’s fascination with a little girl. I found this troubling. This changed my view that Nabokov was a stylist who wrote about a perverse subject to that he was a deviant who used style to mask his perversions. I laughed at the hypocrisy of Nabokov and his wife’s lame denials that Sally’s true story influenced the novel.

Very interesting story!

This is a very interesting take on one of the most famous books of all time. I never knew about Sally and found her life and family fascinating.

A New Kind Of Truth-Telling

Sarah Weinman's glittering writing and incisive point-of-view reinvents true crime, while Cassandra Campbell's performance brings every character to life with subtly and precision.

All future works in the genre will have to contend with the contributions of these two women.

Excellent look at an important nove's context

Excellent and meticulously researched study of an abduction case in America after WWII and the linking of this case to Vladimir Nabokov's writing of his masterpiece LOLITA -- a connection that Nabokov himself kind of denied.