Description

'One of the best novels about growing up fast' GUARDIAN

'One falls for Sally Jay Gorce from a great height from the first sentence' OBSERVER

'Scandalous and entertaining . . . Both funny and true' EVENING STANDARD

The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status on first publication and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living.

Sally Jay Gorce is a woman with a mission. It's the 1950s, she's young and she's in Paris. Having dyed her hair pink, she wears evening dresses in the daytime and vows to go native in a way not even the natives can manage. Embarking on an educational programme that includes an affair with a married man (which fizzles out when she realises he's single and wants to marry her); nights in cabarets and jazz clubs in the company of assorted "citizens of the world"; an entanglement with a charming psychopath and a bit part in a film financed by a famous matador.

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?

The Dud Avocado

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Order before 4pm today for delivery by Sat 20 Dec 2025.

A Paperback / softback by Elaine Dundy, Rachel Cooke

3 in stock


    View other formats and editions of The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy

    Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
    Publication Date: 26/08/1993
    ISBN13: 9781853815812, 978-1853815812
    ISBN10: 1853815810

    Description

    'One of the best novels about growing up fast' GUARDIAN

    'One falls for Sally Jay Gorce from a great height from the first sentence' OBSERVER

    'Scandalous and entertaining . . . Both funny and true' EVENING STANDARD

    The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status on first publication and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living.

    Sally Jay Gorce is a woman with a mission. It's the 1950s, she's young and she's in Paris. Having dyed her hair pink, she wears evening dresses in the daytime and vows to go native in a way not even the natives can manage. Embarking on an educational programme that includes an affair with a married man (which fizzles out when she realises he's single and wants to marry her); nights in cabarets and jazz clubs in the company of assorted "citizens of the world"; an entanglement with a charming psychopath and a bit part in a film financed by a famous matador.

    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?

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