Captive in broad daylight: the sickening true crime that inspired Vladimir Nabokov to write ‘Lolita’
In 1955, the Russian American novelist Vladimir Nabokov published Lolita, his most enduring masterpiece in fiction. Over the past seven decades, the dramatic tale of sexual deviancy has inspired thousands of creative minds thanks to Nabokov’s idiosyncrasies as a storyteller and his philosophically pertinent character studies. Among the beguiled were filmmakers Stanley Kubrick and Adrian Lyne, who attempted film adaptations in 1962 and 1997, respectively.
The story leans on Nabokov’s Dostoevskian sensibilities with a cast of extraordinary characters. Reminiscent of the pedophiliac Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment, Lolita follows the story of a French literature professor who goes by the pen name Humbert. He details his obsession with a 12-year-old “nymphet” named Delores Haze (nicknamed Lo or Lolita), whom he helplessly pursues. After becoming the girl’s stepfather, he kidnaps and sexually abuses her, entangling himself in a plot involving rival predator Clare Quilty.
The story is intentionally provocative, as Kubrick noticed after receiving polarised reviews for his adaptation. Pundits had previously deemed Lolita unadaptable for the screen, encouraging the American filmmaker to defy the bookies. To all intents and purposes, Kubrick prospered, earning a nomination for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ at the 35th Academy Awards. The majority of detractors seemed to take issue with Nabokov’s story itself, deeming its theme of child sexual abuse to be distasteful.
Indeed, Nabokov had an eye for dicey themes, always keen to incite a reaction in his readers, but this depraved story didn’t manifest from thin air. As revealed in Sarah Weinman’s 2018 book The Real Lolita, Nabokov was inspired by the horrifying mid-20th-century true crime story of Sally Horner.
In 1948, Horner, an 11-year-old girl from Camden, New Jersey, was abducted by Frank La Salle, a mechanic in his early 50s. Although he had a criminal record fraught with sex offence cases, La Salle roamed unchecked, deserting his second wife and daughter in favour of a new life with Horner.
La Salle first met his captive in March 1948 when he saw her trying to shoplift a notepad from a Woolworth’s supply shop. He established a power dynamic by claiming that he was an FBI agent, threatening her with arrest if she didn’t follow his every word. After three months of intermittent contact, Horner abducted La Salle and fled west.
Distinguishing this particular case from other instances of kidnapping, La Salle didn’t physically incarcerate his victim. Instead, he coerced Horner into accompanying him on the road trip, during which he subjected her to sexual abuse. The pair would act as normal in public, with La Salle claiming to be an old friend of Horner’s late father.
The abduction lasted for just under two years, with the search stalled for a couple of weeks by letters La Salle forced Horner to write to her mother, detailing a “vacation” with the family of some school friends. In 1949, the pair settled in a Dallas trailer park, and La Salle had his captive attend school under a false name. Fortunately, Stockholm syndrome failed to take hold, and after weighing up her choices, Horner began to confide in a school friend and a neighbour.
The law finally caught up with La Salle in California, where he was arrested and later sentenced to 30-35 years in Trenton State Prison. Meanwhile, Horner was reunited with her mother in April 1950, 22 months after her abduction. Tragically, her restored life was cut short when, in 1952, she was killed in a car accident in New Jersey.
Lolita, of course, deviates significantly from this tragic story, but the idea of a parental power dynamic seemed to inspire Nabokov. Fixated on the idea of a predatory paedophile incarcerating his victim in broad daylight by means of coercion, the novelist conjured Humbert as his version of La Salle. Some readers will also note that Nabokov’s Lolita died in 1952, the same year as Horner’s car accident.
Watch the trailer for Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita below.
