The Dud Avocado in NYRB Classics

Jan 11, 2008 Tosh rated it really liked it

This is a pretty good novel dealing with a (very) young girl making her mark romantically in Paris during the late 50's. Elaine Dundy's background is quite interesting. She was married to theater critic icon Kenneth Tynan as well as wriing a much admired biography on Elvis and his mother.

I met her briefly during a reading for "The Dud Avocado," and she sort of strikes me a a Louise Brooks type of character. Super book smart, lived a great life, and sexy. ...more

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Mar 21, 2008 Kimley rated it really liked it

Shelves: 20th-century, american

Elaine Dundy is sort of an American Colette. There's even a bit with a cat.

The precocious young American girl in Paris has certainly been done before but our heroine Sally Jay has a lot more self awareness than the typical innocent abroad and at the same time she still manages to get herself into all kinds of amusingly compromising situations. Dundy can give one or two details about a character which are so spot on that you immediately feel like you've met this person. I certainly recognized man ...more

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Mar 31, 2012 Janice rated it it was ok

Shelves: nyrb, beach-reads

I thought this was going to be a delightful little romp about a young American girl in 1950’s Paris. Instead, it was a tedious 200 or so pages with an obnoxious protagonist rather generously described as “witty,” “precocious,” and “free-spirited” (read: a narcissistic attention whore). I hated Sally Jay, absolutely couldn’t stand her. Yeah, I get that she’s 22, but there was nothing about her that I could relate to or found redeeming. I hate to say this, because I feel like Elaine Dundy is a dec ...more

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Jul 31, 2008 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: read2008, location-france

A light book, with a fun ending.

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Jun 22, 2008 Abby rated it really liked it

Started this book a year ago around ALA and then got distracted by other things -- just picked it up again over vacation and was charmed and captivated by Sally Jay Gorce's crazy European adventures. The flippant and sophisticated banter Ms. Gorces tosses off with her friends, acquaintances, and paramours brought to mind the voice of Cassandra Edwards (from Dorothy Baker's Cassandra at the Wedding), one of my all-time favorite literary heroines. I wasn't so enamored of the whole "white slavery" ...more

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Jun 09, 2010 Grace rated it really liked it

Shelves: france, nyrb

This is a wonderful book! It has been a long time since I read a book with such a distinctive, unique, entertaining and intelligent voice. Sally Jay is funny, bumbling, loud, unapologetic, and doesn't think before doing anything, but she's also insightful and retrospective, which saves the book - and the character - from sappiness, naïveté, and being too saccharine. Her vocabulary is to die for.

Furthermore the way this plot is knitted together is really interesting. I got the feeling for most of ...more

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May 07, 2013 jenn rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiftyfiftyme, 2013

Sometime's the pacing's a little uneven, but its a fun meander. Sally is everything I want out of a romantic comedy heroine and never seem to get. ...more

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Jun 26, 2011 Jessica rated it did not like it

Shelves: nyrb, 2011

Okay so the lovable batty woman at Community Bookshop said this one was fall-off-your-seat funny, but I found it to be a real dud avocado.

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Dec 30, 2008 Evan rated it really liked it

Shelves: nyrb-classics

Why have so few people heard of this book? It's a fun, light, and hilarious, full of memorable characters, and set in Paris and New York in the 1950s. AND Groucho Marx was a fan of it, so really, what more do you need? ...more

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