The Dud Avocado [Hardcover]

Elaine Dundy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1974

THE DUD AVOCADO gained instant cult status on first publication and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living. It is, as the GUARDIAN observes, 'one of the best novels about growing up fast'. Sally Jay Gorce is a woman with a mission. It's the 1950s, she's young, and she's in Paris. Having dyed her hair pink, she wears evening dresses in the daytime and vows to go native in a way not even the natives can manage. Embarking on an educational programme that includes an affair with a married man (which fizzles out when she realises he's single and wants to marry her); nights in cabarets and jazz clubs in the company of assorted "citizens of the world"; an entanglement with a charming psychopath; and a bit part in a film financed by a famous matador. But an education like this doesn't come cheap. Will our heroine be forced back to the States to fulfill her destiny as a librarian, or can she keep up her whirlwind Parisian existence?

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

**'A champagne cocktail ... Rich, invigorating, and deceptively simple to the taste ... One falls for Sally Jay Gorce from a great height... OBSERVER *** 'As delightful and delicate an examination of how it is to be twenty and in love and in Paris as I've ever read' SUNDAY TIMES ** 'Both funny and true EVENING STANDARD --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Elaine Dundy was born and raised in New York. As an actress, she worked in Paris and London, where she met her husband, the late Kenneth Tynan. THE DUD AVOCADO was her semi-autobiographical first novel, based on the year she spent in Paris. She died in April 2008. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Michael Joseph Ltd; New edition edition (February 1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0718112199
• ISBN-13: 978-0718112196
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,219,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Yay, yay for Sally Jay!, August 21, 2003

By 

Megami (Darwin, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dud Avocado (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)

The narrator of this story, Sally Jay, seems to have a lot in common with that other literary single-girl (pre-Bushnell days) Holly Golightly. She manages to combine innocence and world-weariness, rolling with her situation, no matter how chaotic it becomes. If anything, Sally Jay is Holly's older, slightly tougher sister. A young woman who has been running away all her life, gets the chance to run away to Paris thanks to an avuncular uncle, and lives a pink-haired bohemian existence, trying to experience life to the full - affairs with older men, hanging out with artists, nights at the Ritz followed by dingy student cafes. In the odd beginning chapter (it feels like you have missed an introductory chapter, and it takes awhile before you feel like you know what is going on) she meets a boy/man she has always had a crush on, and her chaotic life becomes even messier. One of her descriptions of him - `I didn't know anyone he'd actually been wrong about - except of course me, but then as we know I am totally incomprehensible to everyone including myself' is shown by the end to be sadly true.

This is a well-written book - cleverly hiding its sinister elements in the light and deft descriptions Sally Jay gives of her life. You feel that sometimes she is trying to kid herself and the reader that really, everything's going to be all right. This is a genuinely entertaining read that still manages to encompass some big themes - the search for happiness and acceptance; making priorities in life; disillusionment and what it can do to temperament. Sally Jay is sure to stay with this reader for a long time.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A hilarious 1958 book about Americans in Bohemian Paris, September 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dud Avocado (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)

Elaine Dundy's book will have you laughing out loud at protagonist Sally Jay Gorce's Parisian misadventures. From the first page, Sally Jay's intelligent, somewhat addled but wildly sarcastic voice entices the reader as she relates her exploits as a young American actress in Paris, complete with stories of drunken carousing, falling in and out of love, dancing in gay bars, dining with aristocrats, coldly sizing up her spoiled Ivy League expatriate friends, and losing her passport along with her temper, among other madcap doings. Just goes to show that, 40 years ago, (who knew?) Americans in Paris were drinking, smoking, sleeping around, staying out all night and hankering for new experiences. This well-written, very entertaining book will be a real eye-opener for readers who think that America in the 1950s was populated exclusively with straight-laced, Ozzie-and-Harriet types.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A funny, witty book with a rare spirit, October 2, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dud Avocado (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)

It isn't often that you can read something which qualifies as both a modern feminist classic and makes you laugh out loud. I loved the descriptions of early 20-th century Paris, could sympathise with the heroine's cads and catastrophes. This is a book to read if you want to walk on the bohemian side. For anyone who's ever walked around in evening dress the morning after.