This book tells the story of a young 11-year-old girl named Sally Horner who was kidnapped in 1948 and held captive for almost two years by a sexual abuser. Weinman also makes the case that Vladimir Nabokov used this real life story to flesh out his novel Lolita which he spent years writing. The book alternates between the story of Sally and the life of Nabokov as he travels across America collecting butterflies with his wife and writing notes on note cards that will eventually become the basis for his novel about a pedophile and his obsessions. Nabokov actually mentions the Sally Horner case in Lolita but he always denied that the case influenced him in writing the novel. Weinman makes a pretty good case to prove otherwise and shows many parallels between the Horner abduction and the novel.

Sally Horner was a very tragic figure who was abducted at age eleven and sexually abused by her abductor for nearly two years before she was able to call her mother and eventually be rescued by the police and FBI. She was taken in New Jersey, spent time in Philadelphia and Texas before winding up in a trailer park in San Jose, California. Her family thought she was probably dead but her mother always held out hope. But then after her rescue and seeming to adapt back to her real life, she is tragically killed in a car accident two years later. Her abductor confessed to the crime and died in prison. So did Nabokov base his novel on this true-life story? Well, he had been working on his novel well before the abduction took place but he may have used the story to finish the novel. But at this point in time, does anyone really care?

Overall, I found the story of Horner to be tragic and disturbing. But her story concluded about half way through the book. I kind of felt like Weinman padded the story with other unrelated events to make what was originally a magazine article into a full length book. Only a very mild recommendation for this one.

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