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A review by corinnekeener
The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
3.0
We read and discussed The Dud Avocado for Episode 49 of The Bookstore Podcast. You can hear more of our thoughts where you get your podcasts.
Things like this are hard to track down precisely so I don't know if this is the first young woman out on her own living free and waking up in strangers' beds narrative, but it's probably the earliest one I've read. And if it were the first I'd read, I probably would have enjoyed it a bit more.
Sally Jay Gorce is a young graduate living in Paris with lots of other ex-pats and seemingly no Parisians. She's got a married Italian diplomat lover, a crush on some guy from back home who directs plays, a hotel room, and an allowance from her rich uncle. At first the story is pretty fun to read as Sally Jay jumps from one frivolous situation to the next, following whatever capricious thought she's got because she's got nothing better to do. But I grew tired of it somewhere around the 1/3rd mark and sort of had to slog through one improbable situation after the next until you hit Part 3 and it's like Elaine Dundy realized she had no idea how to wrap this puppy up so she threw in something so insane I'm still trying to come to terms with it.
Overall, pretty solid. I found the voice to be funny and snappy, but in general I think some more recent publications are doing this genre in a much more dynamic and interesting way (see: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh).
Things like this are hard to track down precisely so I don't know if this is the first young woman out on her own living free and waking up in strangers' beds narrative, but it's probably the earliest one I've read. And if it were the first I'd read, I probably would have enjoyed it a bit more.
Sally Jay Gorce is a young graduate living in Paris with lots of other ex-pats and seemingly no Parisians. She's got a married Italian diplomat lover, a crush on some guy from back home who directs plays, a hotel room, and an allowance from her rich uncle. At first the story is pretty fun to read as Sally Jay jumps from one frivolous situation to the next, following whatever capricious thought she's got because she's got nothing better to do. But I grew tired of it somewhere around the 1/3rd mark and sort of had to slog through one improbable situation after the next until you hit Part 3 and it's like Elaine Dundy realized she had no idea how to wrap this puppy up so she threw in something so insane I'm still trying to come to terms with it.
Overall, pretty solid. I found the voice to be funny and snappy, but in general I think some more recent publications are doing this genre in a much more dynamic and interesting way (see: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh).