The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman

Author:Sarah Weinman
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

Sally Horner and her older sister, Susan Panaro, in the family greenhouse.

Other photographs from the same time suggest that living at the Panaros did Sally some good. One shows Sally standing by herself, clad in an elaborate pale-hued frock suitable for going to church or an afternoon social event. She’s smiling at the camera, though her eyes carry remnants of the shyness she displayed while being filmed at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Sally’s smile is wider in a second photo of her in a different fancy dress. Here she poses with a dark-haired young man wearing a suit at least two sizes too large. The boy is her apparent date, for a school dance or a church social. His name, and how the evening went, is lost to time—as is whether he was aware of what had happened to Sally.

By Sally’s fourteenth birthday in April 1951, she looked like the typical American teenager of that period, the type to be wowed by Perry Como or Tony Bennett or Doris Day or other popular singers of the time. (In Lolita, Nabokov dutifully listed the soundtrack of Dolores and Humbert’s road trip, including Eddie Fisher’s “Wish You Were Here,” Peggy Lee’s “Forgive Me,” and Tony Bennett’s “Sleepless” and “Here in My Heart.”)

One candid photo, likely taken by Al Panaro, hints at more complicated undercurrents in her than in a “bobby-soxer,” as Sally was sometimes referred to in the press coverage of her rescue. She wears jeans again, as she did in the greenhouse photo with Susan, but now her shirt is dark, and her curly hair is pulled back. Her lipstick looks near-black in the black-and-white photo, which suggests she is wearing a ruby-red shade. The camera has captured Sally as she emerged from her bedroom, newspaper in her right hand, expression quizzical, as if she’d been interrupted while reading the funnies. She seems to be in need of sleep, caffeine, or a combination of the two.

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