[.ca] Dud Avocado (ISBN 1853815810)

a gift:
Years ago, I came across this book at Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford and absolutly devoured it. I let my mother borrow it, an aunt, several friends and then lost my copy in the mix of it all. Since I was then living in NYC, it was impossible to come by a copy so I ended up buying about 10 copies and giving them as gifts to friends over the years. Dundy's prose isn't remarkable, but her youthful expression, her ways of seeing the artistic world surrounding her, the blissful madness of a young twenty-year-old alone in Paris all make this a tresure. Find a copy. Share it.

Yay, yay for Sally Jay!:
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.

From a reader in England:
I have recently re-read this book - I read it many years ago and had forgotten how good it was. It was wonderful to find it again. However, in the beginning of my copy it states that Elaine Dundy was working on her autobiography 'Life Itself' to be published in 1998 - I have not been able to find it - can anyone help?

A hilarious 1958 book about Americans in Bohemian Paris:
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.

A funny, witty book with a rare spirit:
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.