The Dud Avocado
Published on 22. January 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-0-349-02088-4 (ISBN)
Description
'Funny, funny, funny. She's wicked and wise' GRETA GERWIG
'One falls for Sally Jay Gorce from a great height from the first sentence' OBSERVER
'Scandalous and entertaining . . . Both funny and true' EVENING STANDARD
'One of the best novels about growing up fast' GUARDIAN
'This dizzying evocation of youth, sex, irresponsibility and doubt is laugh-out-loud funny' DAILY MAIL
Here was all the gaiety and glory and sparkle I knew was going to be life if I could just grasp it . . .
Sally Jay Gorce is a girl hellbent on living. It's the 1950s and she's an American in Paris: witty, headstrong and disaster-prone. She dyes her hair pink, wears evening dresses in the daytime and prowls the Left Bank in search of love, adventure and fame. 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?
As effervescent as a champagne cocktail, The Dud Avocado is a deliciously funny cult classic.
INTRODUCED BY RACHEL COOKE
'One falls for Sally Jay Gorce from a great height from the first sentence' OBSERVER
'Scandalous and entertaining . . . Both funny and true' EVENING STANDARD
'One of the best novels about growing up fast' GUARDIAN
'This dizzying evocation of youth, sex, irresponsibility and doubt is laugh-out-loud funny' DAILY MAIL
Here was all the gaiety and glory and sparkle I knew was going to be life if I could just grasp it . . .
Sally Jay Gorce is a girl hellbent on living. It's the 1950s and she's an American in Paris: witty, headstrong and disaster-prone. She dyes her hair pink, wears evening dresses in the daytime and prowls the Left Bank in search of love, adventure and fame. 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?
As effervescent as a champagne cocktail, The Dud Avocado is a deliciously funny cult classic.
INTRODUCED BY RACHEL COOKE
Reviews / Votes
Readers turn to it again and again for its jokes, which are very funny and remain so after a dozen readings -- Rachel Cooke * Guardian * A champagne cocktail . . . Rich, invigorating, and deceptively simple to the taste . . . One falls for Sally Jay Gorce from a great height from the first sentence * 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 * I had to tell someone how much I enjoyed The Dud Avocado. It made me laugh, scream, and guffaw (which, incidentally, is a great name for a law firm) For a highly likeable and amusing narrator, who throws herself into Parisian life. A cult classic to reconnect me with France and feed my love of sharp observational humour . . . a hedonistic whirlwind in Paris and the South of France, pulled along by its whip-smart American heroine, Sally Jay Gore (out of the way, Emily In Paris). This is someone I am desperate to drink Pernod with. Where life has felt so constrained, this was such a liberating read -- Emma Reed * Daily Telegraph * Scandalous and entertaining . . . Both funny and true * Evening Standard * A youthquake classic that inspires joie de vivre -- Louise Candlish, author of OUR HOUSE * Good Housekeeping * This dizzying evocation of youth, sex, irresponsibility and doubt is laugh-out-loud funny and makes you yearn to be 21 again, drinking Pernod in a pavement cafe with a handsome lover * Daily Mail * **'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 *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 125 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
270 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-349-02088-4 (9780349020884)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
Elaine Dundy (1921-2008) grew up in New York City and Long Island. After graduating from Sweet Briar College in 1943, she worked as an actress in Paris and, later, London, where she met her future husband, the theater critic Kenneth Tynan.
Dundy wrote three novels, The Dud Avocado (1958), The Old Man and Me (1964), and The Injured Party (1974); a play, My Place (produced in 1962); biographies of Elvis Presley and the actor Peter Finch; a study of Ferriday, Louisiana; and a memoir, Life Itself!
Dundy wrote three novels, The Dud Avocado (1958), The Old Man and Me (1964), and The Injured Party (1974); a play, My Place (produced in 1962); biographies of Elvis Presley and the actor Peter Finch; a study of Ferriday, Louisiana; and a memoir, Life Itself!