Tag: Elaine Dundy

Dud Avocado

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Dundy, Elaine. The Dud Avocado. New York: New York Review Books, 2007.

I think I would have liked to have known Elaine Dundy. Loosely based on her own life, Dud Avocado is a delicious romp through Paris, France in the 1950s. Dundy or rather Sally Jay Gorce, storms her way through the night clubs and Parisian society. Here’s the skinny on the plot: when Sally Jay Gorce was thirteen years old her uncle made her a deal: stop running away (now) and graduate from college (eventually). If she did all that he would pay for her to go anywhere for two years. No strings attached. He wouldn’t even try to contact her. After two years she could come home and tell him all about it…When we first meet Sally she is in Paris, France and it has been eight years since she made that deal. At the moment she is trying to win the favors of actor Larry Keevil, a fellow American with shiny auburn hair and gray-green eyes. She is in love. The only problem is this: Sally is currently involved with a “three-timing” man who already has a wife (1), mistress (2) and Sally (3). Sally gets mixed up in a bunch of relationships but she always keeps coming back to Larry. Only, he’s not the man she thinks he is. And she isn’t the girl she thought she was. Turns out she really did want to be a librarian.

The line that says it all for me: “We had lived there all alone for two whole months without it burning down” (p 203).

Confessional: I have to admit to an earlier confusion. Because both The Old Man and Me and The Dud Avocado were loosely based on Elaine Dundy’s personal life I thought the two books were connected. In Dundy’s early 20s she was in Paris and later she went to London. I thought the heroines of Old Man and Dud would be one and the same therefore their stories should be read in order. Nope. Two different characters based on the same author. Go figure.

Reason read: I heard this was supposed to be read before The Old Man and Me, or rather, the same leading character was in each story. Nevertheless, I have read them backwards.

Author fact: The Dud Avocado was Dundy’s first novel and was a hit, much to the jealousy of her husband (also a writer as a film critic). Much has been made about Groucho Marx’s praise of Dud.

Book trivia: According to Terry Teachout’s introduction The Dud Avocado has never been out of print in England. Pretty cool for a first novel.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called simply “American Girls” (p 18).

Old Man & Me

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Dundy, Elaine. The Old Man and Me. New York: New York Review Books, 2005.

Introductions to books often bore me, I’ll admit it. I’m the one who will skip them nine times out of ten. For some reason I didn’t skip Dundy’s introduction to The Old Man and Me and I’m very glad I didn’t. I appreciated her explanation of who Honey Flood is, why Honey is the way she is (think Jessica Rabbit, “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way”), and why she wanted Honey that way. Dundy wants her reader to know the purpose of Honey in Old Man is as a response to the male anti-heroes of the era. By creating the female counterpart, Honey Flood is the Angry Young Woman who hates everything English. Additionally, Miss Flood is opinionated, hot-tempered, easy annoyed, more often than not, sarcastically irritated and a liar to boot. As Dundy explains, “But what I hope I had going for me is that Bad Girls are more interesting that Good ones” (p ix). Amen to that. So, about Honey…she’s out to seduce an older man. She’ll go to great lengths to land an interview with him, including befriending people she can’t stand. Why? He married her stepmother after her father’s death and by default (stepmum later committed suicide), has all Honey’s inheritance. In short, Honey wants her money back. True to Dundy’s intro, Honey is nothing short of nasty. There were surprises within Old Man and Me that popped up unexpectedly.

Lines which sparked the imagination, “Bollie was a sort of chain-talker, lighting one end of a conversation to another without letting the first go out” (p 8) and “She had lost her husband only two days ago and already she was a lost soul” (p 29).

Confessional: I didn’t catch that The Old Man and Me was a continuation of sorts of The Dud Avocado so I read Old Man before Avocado. My mistake. Bummer.

Reason read: January is the time people make resolutions. It’s also the most popular time to put affairs in order, like creating or revising a will.

Author fact: Elaine died in 2008. At 82 years of age she wrote the introduction I mentioned earlier. She lived to be 87 years old.

Book trivia: The Old Man and Me is a sequel of sorts to The Dud Avocado. The main character is in Dud and although she is older, she appears again in Old Man.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “American Girls” (p 18).