Rust & Stardust

Rust & Stardust is the story of Sally Horner, the eleven-year-old girl whose kidnapping by Frank LaSalle inspired Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and to whom Humbert Humbert refers when he asks, “Had I done to Dolly, perhaps, what Frank Lasalle, a fifty-year-old mechanic, had done to eleven-year-old Sally Horner in 1948?” It is the opposite of “Lolita”, telling Sally’s story from her point of view. The story also follows a classmate who witnessed the kidnapping, Sally’s family, and a few people she met during her two-year ordeal. The voice we don’t hear is Frank LaSalle’s. His motives and thoughts are erased, just as Humbert Humbert erased Lolita.

T. Greenwood gives us the story of a bright and eager child who was stolen by show more Frank LaSalle, a pedophile who dragged her across the country to evade capture. It shows us how he was able to control her through lies and threats, counting on the credulity of a child in the face of adult lies. The outline of the story is true, though characters are imagined and obviously their thoughts and feelings are down to the empathetic imagination of the writer.

While reading Rust & Stardust, I was reminded more of Reading Lolita in Tehran than Lolita. In it, Azar Nafisi reminds us that is is “the confiscation of one individual’s life by another.” She talks of how “we only see her in passing glimpses.” Nabokov makes that very clear. “What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another fanciful Lolita—perhaps, more real than Lolita . . . having no will, no consciousness—indeed no real life of her own.” T. Greenwood restores Sally to the word, as she imagines her and as her family described her.

I rushed through Rust & Stardust eager for Sally’s salvation and justice for LaSalle. I appreciate Greenwood’s skillful and tasteful way of writing about the abuse. We know it happened, but we are spared prurient detail. I know I loved My Absolute Darling that pushed the creep factor across every line ever drawn, but I was relieved by Greenwood’s discretion.

Greenwood adds to the narrative in many ways. For example, when Howard Unruh commits a mass shooting and the police seem distracted from the search for Sally, we are reminded that there is a sort of compassion fatigue that sets in, that people move on from tragedy, leaving the family feeling forgotten. We also see how the family struggles when Sally comes home to them, how the lost time also creates lost connections.

So, I did not read Wikipedia to know what happened in reality before I read this, which is probably why I was completely devastated at the end. I did read it after and certainly, the outline of the novel follows her real life and Greenwood explains who is a real person and who is imagined. This is a story that breaks your heart time and time again, but Sally’s curiosity and her ability to hold on to that brass ring will heal it every time.

Rust & Stardust will be published on August 7th. I received an ARC from the publisher through Shelf Awareness.

Rust & Stardust at St. Martin’s Press | Macmillan
T. Greenwood

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/07/17/9781250164193/ show less

This is the most disturbing book I’ve ever read. I think I would have not been able to finish it but for the expertly nuanced narration by Therese Plummer. (Kudos to her).
So this is a fictionalized account of the real life abduction that has ties with Nabokov’s Lolita (Lolita has passages that reference this event; accounts differ as to Nabokov’s knowledge of this event and the timeline of his writing Lolita; but he had written a work in 1938 along these lines, so it would appear the idea for Lolita precedes these events; Greenwood acknowledges this in her Author’s Notes; and she takes her title from the closing lines of a poem by Humbert Humbert.)

As reprehensible as Nabokov’s fictionalized Humbert Humbert is, show more LaSalle/Warner/LePlante here is viler.

Thanks to Greenwood for giving Sally a voice. show less

There is a nonfiction account of Sally Horner’s story that is garnering a lot of media press lately, which is unfortunate because from what I have been hearing, it is not the greatest reading experience. It is also unfortunate that the nonfiction version is getting all of the publicity because T. Greenwood’s fictionalized version is so very, very good. With the freedom of fiction, Ms. Greenwood places us into the mind of Sally and that of her mother and sister so that they are once again alive and vibrant and telling their collective story so that all may know what happened during those lost years at the end of the 1940s.

Rust & Stardust is not an easy novel to read. While Ms. Greenwood does not get explicit in the forms of abuse show more Sally experiences, she provides enough contextual clues to understand just what is happening to Sally at any given time. This understanding is enough to turn your stomach and is most definitely a trigger for readers sensitive to pedophilia and other forms of child abuse. While it would be easy to say that such knowledge is not necessary to Sally’s story, Ms. Greenwood presents it in such a way to understand not only her experiences but also her frame of mind during and after her abduction. In turn, this helps frame her state of mind that leads to her ultimate fate. It may be some of the most difficult reading you might do, but it is vital reading if only to recognize the mental trauma such sustained abuse causes Sally and the strains placed on her relationships with her sister and mother as a result of her trauma.

Because of the sensitive nature of her subject, Ms. Greenwood tiptoes delicately through the grimier aspects of Sally’s story. She provides Sally with a modicum of privacy within her most horrific scenes. Some of this privacy is out of necessity if only because we truly have no idea what Sally thought or felt throughout her ordeal. However, even among those aspects of the story in which Ms. Greenwood had to utilize her imagination, her speculations are so realistic that you forget you are reading fiction. In point of fact, Ms. Greenwood’s diligent and very thorough research shines among the pages of Rust & Stardust so that you do not have to do any further research on your own. Adding to that is Ms. Greenwood’s ability to paint a picture, which is so good that you have no need to Google Sally and find the images to which Ms. Greenwood refers throughout the story.

To that end, Rust & Stardust is an excellent historical fiction novel specifically because Ms. Greenwood not only did her homework on her chosen subject but also presents it in such a way that blurs the line between fiction and reality. It is easy to forget that Sally’s story is real, that Sally herself was real, and that she did endure years of sexual, physical, and mental abuse at the hands of her abductor. That her story inspired Vladimir Nabokov only serves to make his classic story even more disturbing – because it forces us to realize that for all his rationalizations, Humbert Humbert really is a disgusting and depraved character, something not so easy to realize while reading it.

Sally’s story is a tough one, and there will be times you will set it aside thinking you cannot possibly get through it, but there is something so beautiful about Rust & Stardust that it bears continuing with it. Sally may have undergone horrific situations, but her family never gave up on her. They continued to search and pushed the police to continue their searches. They offered rewards, even though money was tight. They physically searched areas themselves. They fought, and Sally fought. That is the story worth telling and worth experiencing. That we should never succumb to what is happening to us but continue to fight to achieve our goals – whether they are to lose weight, travel more, or escape your abductor. For the many instances of a roiling stomach her story causes, Ms. Greenwood’s Rust & Stardust is a beautiful, sensitive novel that provides you more insight into the Horner family than a certain other nonfiction publication out on the shelves right now. show less

Until this book, I only had the vaguest notion that the classic novel Lolita was based on an actual kidnapping. This novel dramatizes the case of Sally Horner, who was kidnapped in 1948 and spent two years with Frank LaSalle before the authorities caught up to them. One thing I liked about this novel is that it is largely told from the perspective of Sally and her family. While I love the novel Lolita, it's written from the perspective of a child molester and the reader always has a very skewed sense of what the child thinks and feels throughout. This novel brings Sally's hopes and fears and pain to the center of the story and left me wishing for a better end to the story for Sally.

Just....wow. This book was a phenomenal, heart-wrenching blend of true crime and fiction. This was not a read for those already down in the dumps; my heart wept for Sally and her hardships, and I couldn’t put the book down for fear of abandoning her in the midst of her terror and trauma. The author did a brilliant job weaving together fact and fiction, and the multiple POVs that share the telling of Sally’s story worked perfectly in engaging the reader. For sure a must read, but be sure to have some chocolate on hand to comfort your soul, because you’re gonna need it.

4.5 stars.

Set in 1948, Rust & Stardust by T. Greenwood is a heartrending fictionalized novel based on the real life kidnapping of Sally Horner.

After seeing a group of girls become "blood sisters", shy and friendless eleven year old Sally Horner agrees their "initiation" to their club. Despite her qualms about getting caught, Sally steals a composition notebook from Woolworth's. She is caught leaving the store by a man claiming to be an FBI agent who tells her she is under arrest. Unbeknownst to Sally, he is in actuality, a recently released ex-convict named Frank LeSalle. In an effort to spare her widowed mother, Ella, the truth about her "crime", Sally convinces her mom that Frank is taking her on a family vacation to Atlantic City show more with her daughter's classmate. Ella has no reason to doubt the veracity of his story and she leaves Sally with Frank at the local bus station. Thus begins Sally's harrowing ordeal at the hands of a skillful manipulator who is also a child predator.

Sally is a lonely young girl who does not want to upset or disappoint her mother after Frank catches her stealing. She naively believes everything he tells her and although she picks up on puzzling inconsistencies in his explanations, she blindly follows his instructions. When she does ask questions, Sally's punishment is swift and violent. In a desperate attempt to return home, she inadvertently sets in motion their relocation to Baltimore.

In Baltimore, Sally continues to suffer horrific abuse yet Frank inexplicably enrolls her in school. He frightens her into keeping silent about their home life and she follows his order to the letter. Sally's teacher, Sister Mary Katherine, instinctively realizes something is amiss with the young girl and she keeps a close eye on her new student. Yet when she finally decides to take action, Frank once again evades capture as he escapes with Sally and moves to Dallas, TX.

Now living in a trailer court, Sally remains firmly under Frank's control while she forms a close bond with their neighbor Ruth. Unable to have children, Ruth spends many hours with Sally. It does not take long for suspicions to arise about what is going on in the trailer next door, but will Ruth be able to save the frightened young girl?

Rust & Stardust is a truly captivating novel that deals with some very difficult subject matter. The dark and distressing storyline is relieved by genuine moments of true compassion and caring from the people whose lives are touched by Sally's plight. This intricately plotted novel is loosely based on real life events and T. Greenwood brings this long forgotten crime vibrantly and sensitively to life. I highly recommend this tragic yet fascinating re-imagining of a horrific crime. show less

Sally Horner, the daughter of a single mother, is a lonely 5th grader who is tasked with shoplifting as her initiation into to a group of girls. She reluctantly agrees, and is observed by a man who identifies himself as FBI agent who must arrest her for shoplifting a notebook. Sally is terrified and hates to think what disappointment this will cause her over-worked, physically frail mother. The man, Frank LaSalle, meets with Sally after school, and tells her he has to escort her to the courthouse to face a judge. What fifth grader would not believe him? Once Sally is bound to him by guilt, he then poses as the father of Sally’s classmate and convinces her gullible mother that he is going to take her on a family vacation in Atlantic show more City. Thus begins a horrifying time when the author realistically imagines the abuse Sally suffered, and is forced by LaSalle to take on the name Florence Fogg when they move to Baltimore and then across the country for two years.

This story is all the more heartbreaking because it is based on the real life of Sally Horner, the inspiration for Nabokov’s Lolita. There are monsters masquerading as humans who prey on the most vulnerable and innocent. A judge in this factionalized version referred to Frank during the trial as a “moral leper.” How apt. I served on juvenile court panels that reviewed the cases of children in foster care. The most damaged, often irredeemably, are these children whose innocence has been stolen and their trust destroyed. Even hardened criminals in prison revile these monsters, which is why they are not placed in the general prison population. I am convinced that all convicted pedophiles should be transported to an island surrounded by shark-infested waters to either survive or not. show less