My Humbert Moment

A friend of mine sent me Lolita in the summer of 1985 when I was 21 and working as a camp counselor in the mountains of New Hampshire. He must have sent it to me as a gag or a prank or a cruel joke. As I read the book, I became oppressively aware of the beauty of the young nymphets who were in vast supply all around me. I subsequently developed something of a crush on a 12-year-old, mostly to torture myself, much in the same way that for years I've imagined jumping in front of approaching subway cars.

Well, one day this 12-year-oldÊleaped onto my back and wrapped her legs around me. ThisÊwas all very unexpected-I was caught off-guard. She jumped on me because she was being pursued by her male peers. When the boys saw that she was safely perched on my back, they peeled away. Then she ran after them so she could be chased some more. I was left standing there, rather shaken. I then fictionalized this incident in my novel The Extra Man.

So what has Lolita meant to me? I'm not sure really, but it inspired, in more ways than one, actually two ways, a scene in my own work. The two ways: I had an actual Humbert Humbert moment and then I paid homage to Nabokov by writing about it.