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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    A Paperback / softback by Elaine Dundy, Rachel Cooke

    £9.49

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    RRP £9.99 – you save £0.50 (5%)

    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Tue 29 Sep 2026.

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      Book details

      Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
      Published 26 August 1993
      ISBN-13 9781853815812
      978-1853815812
      ISBN-10 1853815810
      Also in:
      Classics

      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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