The Dud Avocado (New York Review Books Classics)
“Basically, if you were to set Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady near the Sorbonne, untangle the sentences and add more slapstick, sex and champagne cocktails, you’re getting close.” - Rosecrans Baldwin, NPR's "All Things Considered""Already singled out inOthe Oprah Magazine and named an Amazon.com 'mover and shaker,'  this edition will...introduce a new readership to the unforgettable Sally Jay Gorce,  described by one reviewer as a cross between Carrie Bradshaw and Holden Caulfield."  --Los Angeles Times "Before Bridget Jones, deeply sweet and recklessly intimate  Sally Jay Gorce trolled for love (Parisian style) in novelist (and sometime wife  of theater critic Kenneth Tynan) Elaine Dundy'sThe Dud Avocado, a madcap read from  1958 that's finally back in print in the United States." --O Magazine "The Dud Avocadofollows 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 "Think Daisy  Miller with a dash ofFear of Flying;My Sister Eileenwith a soupçon ofSex and  the City; Anita Loos crossed with Allen Ginsberg." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "Now,  this favorite has been re-issued yet again, with a gorgeous black and white nude  on the cover. Fair enough, for here is a book primarily about sex and style...few  writers ever soared so high and so delightfully." --Los Angeles Times "The Dud Avocadoopens with our beautiful and hapless heroine--imagine the panache of Holly Golightly  crossed with the naive knowingness of Holden Caulfield--wandering one September morning  through Paris in an evening dress." --Boston Globe "Elaine Dundy's semi-autobiographical  novelThe Dud Avocado, which follows the romantic escapades of Sally Jay Gorce--an  irrepressible young woman seeking adventure in '50s Paris--contains a lot of what  makes fiction fun: charm, wit, and devastatingly sharp insights." --Very Short List "The gayest and most cheerful novel about Americans in Paris I have read...a dazzling  performance--as light as a champagne bubble, as continuously attention-getting as  a juggler keeping seven swords in the air at the same time." --The New York Times "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 "Delightful...her portrait of the Left  Bank expatriates is caustically funny."--Time "A champagne cockail...rich, invigorating,  and deceptively simple to the taste...One falls for Sally Jay from a great height  from the first sentence." --The Observer "A first-rate reporter, [Dundy] has madeThe Dud Avocadointo 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 "A cheerfully uninhibited...variation on the theme of the Innocents Abroad...Miss  Dundy comes up with fresh and spirited comedy...Her novel is enormous fun-sparklingly  written, genuinely youthful in spirit, and exquisitely gay." --The Atlantic "Elaine  Dundy writes a sprightly novel to bring us up to date on the American girl from across  the street who goes to Paris looking for Life and Love.  Her book is sad and tender,  bubbling with fun, spiced with insight...The Dud Avocadois satiric, mostly true,  and decidedly sexy...The writing is sharp." --New York Herald Tribune "[W]itticisms  that crackle from every page." --Indianapolis Star "One of the funniest books I've  ever read; it should be subtitled Daisy Miller's Revenge." --Gore Vidal