Reading Lolita in Long Island

NATURE is, as one of Katherine Hepburn’s characters observed, what we are put in this world to rise above. On the other hand, a Frenchman of at least equal sagacity pointed out that he who would act the angel makes himself a beast. Plainly, therefore, we should not aspire to rise too high above nature. Somewhere between the beast and the angel is a point of balance.

This line of thought began when, opening up my New York Post one recent Sunday, I found myself looking at Amy Fisher, “the Long Island Lolita.” This was the girl who, back in 1992, shot her lover’s wife in the face. Said lover, the egregious Joey Buttafuoco, was 18 years older than Amy. Their affair had begun a year before, when Joey was 35, Amy not quite 17. Following the shooting, Joey did time for statutory rape; Amy, for first-degree assault. Mrs. Buttafuoco recovered, and Sunday’s newspaper story was about an attempt to bring all three of them together for a TV interview. Amy is now 31 and a married woman with two children.

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John Derbyshire

Mr. Derbyshire is a former contributing editor of National Review.

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NATURE is, as one of Katherine Hepburn’s characters observed, what we are put in this world to rise above. On the other hand, a Frenchman of at least equal sagacity pointed out that he who would act the angel makes himself a beast. Plainly, therefore, we should not aspire to rise too high above nature. Somewhere between the beast and the angel is a point of balance.

This line of thought began when, opening up my New York Post one recent Sunday, I found myself looking at Amy Fisher, “the Long Island Lolita.” This was the girl who, back in 1992, shot her lover’s wife in the face. Said lover, the egregious Joey Buttafuoco, was 18 years older than Amy. Their affair had begun a year before, when Joey was 35, Amy not quite 17. Following the shooting, Joey did time for statutory rape; Amy, for first-degree assault. Mrs. Buttafuoco recovered, and Sunday’s newspaper story was about an attempt to bring all three of them together for a TV interview. Amy is now 31 and a married woman with two children.