by T. Greenwood
Without Sally Horner those pages might have been nothing but ash.
* * *
My initial encounter with Sally Horner was when I was nineteen years old and reading Lolita for the first time. Though I must admit, the name Sally Horner barely registered in my consciousness, as her story was relegated to one of Nabokov’s famous parenthetical asides: “(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 took more than twenty-five years before I found her again. This time, I happened upon Sarah Weinman’s riveting long-form essay, “The Real Lolita,” published in Hazlitt, where I learned the true-crime story hinted at inside those parentheses. I am tremendously grateful and indebted to Ms. Weinman for this introduction to Sally.
At the time that I read this story, my youngest daughter was eleven years old, the same age as Sally when she was abducted. Perhaps for this reason, I originally found myself drawn to the story of her mother, Ella Horner, a seamstress raising two daughters alone after her second husband’s suicide. Those classmates, those girls, who convinced her to steal the notebook and likely witnessed the confrontation between Sally and La Salle, also fascinated me. I was consumed by all of those people in Sally’s life who were left behind. But most of all, I was captivated by Sally, though for a long time she remained as elusive to me as one of Nabokov’s butterflies.
I spent more than a year learning everything I could about Sally and her family, about her abduction, from newspaper archives, census records, yearbooks, and other scholarly articles that speculated on the role Sally’s true-crime story played in Nabokov’s novel. I studied the places she lived: from the row house where she lived in Camden, New Jersey, to the trailer park where she and Frank lived in Dallas. But mostly, I imagined. I dreamed myself into Sally’s life.
Of course, no one but Sally and Frank knows what occurred as they traveled from Camden to Atlantic City then on to Baltimore, Dallas, and, finally, San Jose. And so this is not a true-crime story in the traditional sense. And that was never my intention. While I drew heavily on Sally’s heartbreaking story, this novel is ultimately an imagined rendering of the years that she spent on the road with her captor and of the impact of her abduction on those she encountered along the way as well as those she left behind.
I am not a biographer, nor am I a true-crime writer; I am a novelist, and this is, in the end, a work of fiction. While the series of events and the settings in which they occur mirror history, the characters and their inner lives are entirely fabricated. In most instances, I have used the actual names of the real characters involved, but some of the names have been fictionalized. I have meticulously researched Sally’s ordeal, but I have also dreamed up both the horrors she must have experienced and the friendships and moments of joy that, perhaps, enabled her to survive. I have taken many, many liberties with both character and plot. Sister Mary Katherine, Sammy, Lena, Vivi, and several other characters are figments of my imagination, speculations based on the places where Sally was known to have lived and gone to school. Sally was enrolled in Catholic school in both Baltimore and in Dallas; Sister Mary Katherine was born of this truth. The trailer park where Frank and Sally lived was, indeed, where the circus workers stayed when the circus was in town; Lena and Oscar materialized as I dreamed those long summer days of 1949. The mass murder by Howard Unruh is a true crime, but Irene (who lives only in my imagination) was not one of his actual victims. There are many other instances in the novel where, inspired by history and place, I spun both characters and events from these delicate threads.
While the timeline and sequence of events reflect history, there remains (for me) much mystery regarding Frank’s motives and the logistics that enabled him to transport Sally across the country without getting caught by law enforcement. I constructed the relationships with Sammy in Baltimore and Joey Bonds (a real-life character) in order to both understand and dramatize the sequence of events leading up to Sally’s eventual rescue. The confrontation between Ruth and Frank in those final moments is also pure fiction. So, too, is the encounter with the boys in Wildwood, though the car crash and Sally’s ultimate demise is, tragically, absolutely true.
* * *
This was the most challenging novel I have ever written. And while I didn’t ever burn it in a backyard bonfire, there were times when I felt the itch to light a match. For saving it from the ashes, I first need to thank Rich Farrell. Without your words of encouragement, it would certainly have been incinerated. Jillian Cantor, I cannot express my gratitude for the almost daily reassurance you gave me as I struggled to bring these characters to life. I am so grateful for your generosity of time and spirit. Amy Hatvany, Mary Kubica, and Caroline Leavitt, you were all there exactly when I needed you. Thank you. I offer humble gratitude to my agent, Victoria Sanders, for taking this project (and me!) on and for forcing me to dig deeper and work harder. I am so lucky to have you in my corner. Bernadette Baker-Baughman, Jessica Spivey, Benée Knauer, and Deborah Jayne, you are an unbeatable team. Thank you to Henry Dunow and Peter Senftleben for years of support. Thank you to my editor, Hope Dellon, for your enthusiasm, insightfulness, and kindness. To Lisa Senz, Hannah O’Grady, and Nancy Sheppard for such a warm welcome to the St. Martin’s Press family, and to Amy Schneider for her keen eye. Thank you to Olga Grlic as well for designing a cover that makes my heart swell.
And thank you to my friends and family who listened to me talk about this story ad infinitum (Heather Anderson, Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, Melissa Clark, Toni Donk, Janet Dunphy-Brown, Neal Griffin, Nina Hall, Cecilia Meyer, Tricia Ornelas, Shannon Roberts, Jim Ruland, Danielle Shapiro-Rudolph, Esther Stewart, Teri Stumpo, Beya Thayer, and Nicole Walker). To my parents, Paul and Cyndy Greenwood, and sister, Ceilidh Greenwood, for always believing in me and my work. To my husband, Patrick Stewart, and my girls, Mikaela and Esmée, for your endless patience and love. I love you three more than I have words to express.
* * *
In 1953, when Nabokov finally finished the novel that would become one of the most celebrated, and most reviled, books in American literary history, Sally was dead. Of course, Sally Horner lives on inside those dangerous pages, little bits of her life borrowed and changed. Dolores Haze, Dolores Haze. Funny, how a whole beautiful and sad life can become the footnote to someone else’s story. How this luminescent girl (like so many girls) could be, until now, just an adjunct, captured and preserved inside a parenthetical cage.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
T. GREENWOOD has received grants from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, Christopher Isherwood Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Maryland State Arts Council. Her novel Bodies of Water was a 2014 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist; Two Rivers, Grace, and Where I Lost Her were each named Best General Fiction Book at the San Diego Book Awards, and Where I Lost Her was a Globe and Mail bestseller in 2016. Greenwood lives with her family in San Diego. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
St. Martin’s Press ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Camden, New Jersey: June 1948
Sally
Ella
Sally
Sally
Ella
Sally
Ella
Sally
Atlantic City, New Jersey: June 1948
Sally
Susan
Sally
Ella
Sally
Vivi
Ella
Al
Sally
Susan
Ella
Sally
Baltimore, Maryland: August 1948
Sally
Ella
Sally
Ella
Sally
Al
Susan
Sally
Ella
Sister Mary Katherine
Vivi
Susan
Ella
Sally
Susan
Sally
Sister Mary Katherine
Sally
Sister Mary Katherine
Sammy
Sally
Ella
Sally
Dallas, Texas: April 1949
Sally
Ruth
Sally
Susan
Ella
Sally
Al
Sally
Ruth
Sally
Al
Sally
Sammy
Lena
Ruth
Sally
Sally
Al
Susan
Ella
Ruth
Sally
Sally
Ruth
Ella
Ruth
Sally
Ruth
Sally
Ruth
Sally
Susan
Ella
Sally
Susan
Sally
San Jose, California: March 1950
Ella
Ruth
Vivi
Ella
Sally
Ella
Ruth
Al
Ruth
Sally
Margaret
Sally
Margaret
Sally
Al
Sally
Police Chief John Darling
Ruth
Camden, New Jersey: April 1950
Ella
Sally
Ella
Sally
Ella
Sally
Ella
Al
Camden, New Jersey: 1951–1952
Sally
Al
Ella
Sally
Wildwood by the Sea, New Jersey: August 1952
Sally
Camden, New Jersey: August 1952
Vivi
Susan and Al
Ella
Lena
Sister Mary Katherine
Ruth
Author’s Note
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. As is true in many books of fiction, this book was inspired by historical events. Nevertheless, all of the actions in this book, as well as all of the characters and dialogue, are products solely of the author’s imagination.
RUST & STARDUST. Copyright © 2018 by T. Greenwood. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover photographs: ribbon © Peter Hatter/Trevillion Images; sky © Skylines/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Greenwood, T. (Tammy), author.
Title: Rust & stardust / T. Greenwood.
Other titles: Rust and stardust
Description: First edition. | New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018001891 | ISBN 9781250164193 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250202598 (international) | ISBN 9781250164216 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Kidnapping victims—Fiction. | Ex-convicts—Fiction. | Life change events—Fiction. | GSAFD: Biographical fiction. | Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3557.R3978 R87 2018 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018001891
eISBN 9781250164216
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact your local bookseller or the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: August 2018