The Lolita Con

'You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style'

Vladimir Nabokov’s best and creepiest con with “Lolita” (1955) was to make gruesome Humbert Humbert aspirational for provincial American men like Jeffrey Epstein and Woody Allen.

“You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.” Humbert signals at every turn that he’s nothing more than a depraved child rapist. But he’s also “a bronzed glamor…