Rust & Stardust
The gripping, heart-wrenching novel of Sally Horner, the 11-year-old kidnapping victim whose abduction in 1948 inspired Nabokov's Lolita.
Camden, NJ, 1948. When 11 year-old Sally Horner steals a notebook from the local Woolworth's, she has no way of knowing that 52 year-old Frank La Salle, fresh out of prison, is watching her, preparing to make his move. Accosting her outside the store, Frank convinces Sally that he’s an FBI agent who can have her arrested in a minute―unless she does as he says.
This chilling novel traces the next two harrowing years as Frank mentally and physically assaults Sally while the two of them travel westward from Camden to San Jose, forever altering not only her life, but the lives of her family, friends, and those she meets along the way.
Based on the experiences of real-life kidnapping victim Sally Horner and her captor, whose story shocked the nation and inspired Vladimir Nabokov to write his controversial and iconic Lolita, this heart-pounding story by award-winning author T. Greenwood at last gives a voice to Sally herself.
PRAISE FOR RUST & STARDUST
"Unflinching but compassionate, Greenwood deftly unravels the devastating layers of malice and carelessness that tore Sally from her family, but also the love and perseverance that eventually brought her home."
—Bryn Greenwood, author of the New York Times bestseller All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
“Greenwood’s glowing dark ruby of a novel brilliantly transforms the true crime story that inspired Nabokov’s Lolita. Shatteringly original and eloquently written, Rust and Stardust is a lot about how what we believe to be true can shape or ruin a life, and the bright lure of innocence pitted against the murk of evil. So ferociously suspenseful, I found myself holding my breath, and so gorgeous and so unsettling in all the roads it might have taken, I kept rereading pages.”
—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World
"A harrowing, ripped-from-the-headlines story of lives altered in the blink of an eye, once again proving her eloquence and dexterity as an author.”
—Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl
"A lyrical and haunting meditation on family, love, and survival, this novel—and Sally Horner—stayed with me long after I turned the last page."
—Jillian Cantor, author of Margot and The Lost Letter
"Greenwood is unmatched in her innate ability to weave lush, poetic language into a riveting story that hooks the reader from page one."
—Amy Hatvany, author of Best Kept Secret, and It Happens All the Time
"An absolute treasure for bookclubs and the discussions it is sure to inspire."
—Pamela Klinger-Horn, Excelsior Bay Books
"T. Greenwood's sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat novel is a multi-layered story."
—Nancy Simpson-Brice, Book Vault
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