The writer Sarah Weinman discusses her new book The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World (Knopf, 2018), Vladimir Nabokov’s writing, and more, with Joseph Planta.

The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman (Knopf, 2018). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Real Lolita

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

One of the more gripping and compelling books of the season is the new book from Sarah Weinman, The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World. It’s an investigation of the 1948 abduction of eleven-year old Sally Horner. It was a case that was widely reported at the time, and as Ms. Weinman establishes in the book, was one that Vladimir Nabokov followed and took notes on. Mention of the case makes it in to the novel itself, which when published in 1955 is a huge success. The life of Horner though is investigated rigorously by Ms. Weinman and what emerges is a full picture of Sarah Horner, someone seemingly forgotten, and completely overshadowed by the fictional Dolores in the novel. What’s to admire in the book is Weinman’s skill at finding legal documents, news stories, as well as mining public records and the interviewing of remaining relatives, both of Sally Horner, as well as Frank La Salle, the man who abducted and raped Horner on a journey from Camden, New Jersey to Baltimore, to Dallas, to San Jose, where she is eventually rescued. Sarah Weinman is the editor of Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s and 1950s, and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives. She covers book publishing for Publishers Marketplace, and has written for sundry publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Republic, the National Post, the Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, and Hazlitt, where a story on Horner she wrote first appeared. She is from Ottawa, and a graduate of McGill and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s forensic science graduate program. She lives in New York, where she joined me from last week. Visit www.sarahweinman.com. This new book is published Knopf. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Sarah Weinman; Ms. Weinman, good morning.

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