Sally Horner was 12 when she was kidnapped by Frank LaSalle, a well-known paedophile who had just been pregnant for 21 months until she managed to escape and call her family.
This dark and even more tragically dyed story inspired Vladimir Nabokov to write one of literature’s best-known works: Lolita (1955).
- It is often said that few books have so many contradictions.
- Literary quality is undeniable.
- As is the atmosphere framed in an impossible journey between a middle-aged man and a girl.
- Where we witness the most decadent.
- Frivolous.
- Dark and empty.
- Side of the values of American society.
Its protagonist, Humbert Humbert (a word that plays with the term “shadow” in French, and meaning shadow), presents itself as a character that is difficult to identify.
We are talking about someone who has already fled Europe for abusing a girl and who will take Lolita into the same world of shadows, to satisfy her fascination with what he calls the “nymphas”, the young teenage girls.
Nabokov’s book hides nothing, camouflages nothing, in fact, the author himself did not want it either, with Humbert tried to show the world the profile of the most classic pervert, someone who, at any moment, does not hesitate to kill. .
The rawness of the story is undeniable and uncomfortable. Controversy permeates every detail and every page, but it’s easy to surrender to this prose, this atmosphere, and this story that shows nothing but a pedophile kidnapping a 12-year-old girl.
A fact that unfortunately was inspired by real characters
“A sentimentalist can be a perfect animal in his spare time. Will a sensitive person never be cruel? -Vladimir Navokov-
Frank LaSalle was a 52-year-old mechanic known to police for abusing girls in their 12- to 14-year-olds. He had just been eded when he decided to move to New Jersey and rebuild his life.
However, it is not easy for this type of profile to keep the hunter trapped who ignores his instincts. In early March 1948, LaSalle returned to her hunting ground after obsessing over a girl, Sally Horner.
Daughter of a widowed mother, it was common to see her leave school with her friends like any ty teen who fears nothing in the world, who trusts and still wakes up to life, at no point did she realize that anyone was chasing her. Daily.
LaSalle followed him until he found an opportunity to satisfy his desires and fall back into crime. Salle had just stolen a five-cent notebook from a store. He was part of a test from his classmates so he could join his group. I would never forget.
Frank LaSalle came to see her as she left the store, saying she was with the FBl. If he wanted his mother not to know what he had just done, I should go with him. Sally, scared and sorry, nodded. They both took a bus and then it all started.
Have you spent about two years traveling all over the country: Atlantic City, Baltimore, Dallas, California?A trip that took them from hotel to hotel, from roadside motel to campsites, always posing as father and daughter.
Nobody knew anything. No one noticed this obsessive father never leaving his daughter alone, no one, until the hotel guest, intrigued by the girl’s frightened and sad attitude, manages for a moment to separate her from LaSalle to ask her if she is okay. and asked for help: I just wanted to call home.
Police arrived quickly and took the boy home to his mother, in which case the girl was able to denounce all the drama she experienced, sexual abuse, humiliation, fear. Frank LaSalle was sentenced to 35 years in prison by a judge who defined him as an “immoral leper. “
The saddest thing, however, happened two years later: Sally Horner died in a car accident when she collided with an agricultural vehicle and Frank LaSalle would take 16 years to die in prison, where she is said to be sending a bouquet every week to the girl’s house. Grave.
All these facts and details are contained in the book The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner, by journalist Sarah Weinman, a detailed and extensive investigation, in which we find remarkable parallels between Sally and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.
Most impressive is the absurdity of this journey between a pedophile and a daughter, the teenage daughter of a widow.
The book was published with a clear objective: to contribute to justice, justice for Sally Horner he he own and for all children kidnapped by paedophiles, moving stories that have been on our media news for a short time.
Similarly, the author also talks about the Nabokovian work, where adult characters interested in girls are recurring.
In addition, we must also remember that when Nabokov finished Lolita, he did not find any publishers in the United States willing to publish it. It was an awkward book, nothing right. It was released by a French publisher specializing in pornographic content.
There were also problems with the filming of Stanley Kubrik’s feature film. Gary Grant, for example, refused to participate in a similar project when he was offered to play Humbert Humbert; even James Mason himself sometimes repented after doing so.
Today, Lolita’s new editions avoid showing a teenage girl who, in a way, seems to be blamed for her own destiny.
Now we find blankets that do not show this femme fatale, this young provocateur with heart-shaped sunglasses. Now we see a manipulated young woman, a shadowy girl, a victim of a pedophile like little Sally Horner.