The Dud Avocado (Virago Modern Classics)

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If someone were to describe this book to me I would definitely find it appealing: 1950s Parisian setting; a young American girl experiencing freedom for the first time, falling in and out of love, arms wide open to adventure. The cover is great; the title is funny and memorable; it has a 'classic' but slightly hipster provenance; it all added up to high reading hopes. Sadly, it just didn't deliver. One of the funniest books I’ve ever read; it should be subtitled Daisy Miller’s Revenge.”–Gore Vidal American goes to some big city with dreams of conquest, hilarity ensues. Dundy's 1958 novel (which had a huge fan in Groucho Marx) is pretty much the best and funniest example of that whole genre. Oh Sally Jay Gorce, despite wanting to fall in love with 'The Dud Avocado's heroine I found her intolerably obnoxious and silly. A first-rate reporter, [Dundy] has made The Dud Avocado into a Baedeker of neo-Bohemiahe…the atmosphere of a French student café; the folkways of hobohemia; the accents of the International Set-all these Miss Dundy has captured with sill and a degree of wit.”— The New York Times Book Review

It's not always the case, but Americans are feeling pretty good about the French these days. Look at this year's Academy Awards: Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, his top-grossing movie of all time, was nominated in four categories. More telling: This year's Best Picture statue went to a French film, The Artist, for the very first time. T]he question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again night after night, but God knows the answer to that is, don’t we all anyway; might as well get paid for it.”However, half-way through the book, I grew tired of Sally (which is fatal in a book like this where everything depends on the reader's relationship with the narrator; in this case, I think, meant to be a friendly one). I was tired of her use of dull slang, her constant putting down of herself, her adventures, repetitive in their nature, and of the cynical world in which she is living. In the first half, I was thrilled to be in Paris with her but by the second half I was as tired of it as she became. There were many moments which I enjoyed, especially in the last few sections but there was a long patch in the middle where I kept wanting to just stop reading. The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status on first publication and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living. Only reason it’s not a 4 is because there were a few sections I felt dragged a little but on the whole I loved the setting, I LOVED the protagonist and how messy she was, and I really enjoyed the plot Through the haze of late nights and smoke filled rooms it takes a while to figure out Sally Jay is in fact an aspiring actress, trying to break into the business through some associates of hers, She is living in the city of lovers thanks to some loot donated to her precisely for this purpose by her kindly Uncle Roger, who apparently understands her "predilection for being continually on the wing". Theirs is a no-strings-attached deal. For this she spends two years doing exactly as she pleases, in a great place to do what she whats to do, Uncle Roger's sole request is that, when her trip is over, she will return and tell him all about it. That's it! No wonder she is so excitable and fruity!

Dear Mrs Tynan, I don't make the habit of writing to married women, especially if the husband is a dramatic critic, but I had to tell someone (and it might as well be you since you're the author) how much I enjoyed The Dud Avocado. It made me laugh, scream and guffaw (which incidentally is a great name for a law firm). If this was actually your life, I don't know how on earth you got through it. Sincerely, Groucho Marx. [6] Think Breakfast at Tiffany’s if it was written by a beat author. The Dud Avocado is going to take you on a journey without a road map; you won’t know if you’ll ever get to the final destination but you’ll get somewhere. Like I said before, I don’t want to spoil the journey, I think something really interesting has been done here and it is worth looking into.One of the funniest books I've ever read; it should be subtitled Daisy Miller's Revenge." --Gore Vidal Take one zippy, curious, 21-year-old American named Sally Jay, just out of college. Drop her in the middle of Paris' Left Bank. Add an Italian diplomat, an American theatrical director , a couple of painters and a white slave trader. Mix until all bubbles. The result: a delightful few hours of sparkling reading entertainment. Summing up: Froth and frolic." --Newsweek a b c d Hoyle, Ben (February 23, 2017). "Tracy Tynan's upbringing: celebrities, drugs, wife-beating and sex". The Times . Retrieved May 14, 2021. (subscription required) In the Guardianin August 2011, Rachel Cooke sees the Sally Jay’s life as ‘a complicated hoot’. She is not too bothered by the amoral aspects of the story. She rightly points out that no one reads this novel for the plot and enjoys the details of the heroine’s chaotic life. You can find her observations here.

On October 20, a new film adaptation of John Williams’s novel Butcher’s Crossing, published by NYRB Classics in 2007, will be released in select movie theaters across the U.S. Directed by Gabe Polsky, the film stars Nicolas Cage as the frontiersman Miller and Fred Hechinger...A photographer does a session with Sally Jay as a model. He is searching for a word to describe her. He finally comes up with 'questing'. Maybe she is and maybe she isn't. But maybe you are. The Dud Avocado follows a charming, if blundering, 21-year-old Missouri native, Sally Jay Gorce, who spends two postcollege years sipping Pernod on “la plus belle avenue du monde,” the Champs-Élysées; staging William Saroyan and Tennessee Williams with an American theater troupe, and fumbling terribly at love.”— The New York Sun Ah, the familiar story line, the recurring fantasy: quit the American life; take a change of underwear and a toothbrush; and expatriate yourself. Anywhere will do. But, usually, Paris.