Wayne Barrett's Reviews > Rust & Stardust

This is the fictional version of the true story of the kidnapping of 11 year old Sally Horner in 1948. It is said that this is the story from which Nabokov got his inspiration for his famous novel, Lolita. Having said that, I'll repeat what is already noted in all the reviews, that even though this novel and Lolita are based on the same story, they are nothing alike in style... or power.

I will say that this version is much more poignant in its own way because it is much closer to the actual facts about what happened to this poor girl. The failure in this attempt is the way it was delivered. This had the feel of a very nasty task that the author decided to tackle but when she got knee deep in the crap didn't really have the nerve to get her hands dirty. The author lets us understand this event was horrible because she gives us the facts and the surrounding circumstances, but because of the way she held back in the telling, I never really felt the horror. The story is sad and informative from a historical stand point, but it didn't move me. I'm sure that what Sally Horner endured was much more horrific than what I felt through the telling of this novel.