'One of the funniest books I've ever read' - Gore Vidal
*
The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status on first publication and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living. It is, as the Guardian observes, 'one of the best novels about growing up fast'.
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?
*
A champagne cocktail ... Rich, invigorating, and deceptively simple to the taste ... One falls for Sally Jay Gorce from a great height from the first sentence - Observer
As delightful and delicate an examination of how it is to be twenty and in love and in Paris as I've ever read - Sunday Times
I had to tell someone how much I enjoyed The Dud Avocado. It made me laugh, scream, and guffaw (which, incidentally, is a great name for a law firm). - Groucho Marx
Books included in the VMC 40th anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White; The Collected Stories of Grace Paley; Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann; Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith; The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heartburn by Nora Ephron; Memento Mori by Muriel Spark; A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor; and Faces in the Water by Janet Frame




![Mullin, Chris FICTION PAPERBACK Chris Mullin: The Friends of Harry Perkins [2020]](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/mullin-chris-chris-mullin-the-friends-of-harry-perkins-2020-1245669066_{width}x.jpg?v=1782158018)
![Binchy, Maeve IRISH FICTION Maeve Binchy: Dublin 4 [2006]](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/binchy-maeve-maeve-binchy-dublin-4-2006-1245669058_{width}x.jpg?v=1782158049)
![Mccormack, Mike IRISH FICTION Mike Mccormack: Notes From A Coma [2006]](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/mccormack-mike-mike-mccormack-notes-from-a-coma-2006-1245669062_{width}x.jpg?v=1782158412)
![Howard, Elizabeth Jane FICTION PAPERBACK Elizabeth Jane Howard: Something in Disguise [1993]](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/howard-elizabeth-jane-elizabeth-jane-howard-something-in-disguise-1993-1245598454_{width}x.jpg?v=1782071652)