Terry’s right, I love, love, love The Dud Avocado and couldn’t be more pleased that a new edition will soon be out and graced with his introduction (not to mention a perfect cover).
I first discovered Elaine Dundy’s novel and its grand, green heroine Sally Jay Gorce–wisecracking, world-wandering descendent of Daisy Miller and Isabel Archer–a couple of years out of college when I was working in New York. My friend Elaine, the editor I assisted at my first job and a reader of impeccable taste, had recommended it. I borrowed her copy, brought it along on a train ride to Albany one weekend, and simply inhaled it. (There’s something about discovering a wonderful book on a train trip that draws it even nearer and dearer to my heart. Dawn Powell’s Turn, Magic Wheel is another. I really must contrive to ride on more trains.) I was probably around Sally Jay’s age, or only a shade older, at the time. To read of her misadventures now, with the perspective of more years and greater experience, is still to be charmed and hugely amused; but it’s also one of those stories of youth that makes me feel I wouldn’t be 20 again for the world.
But Sally Jay works it all out, and here’s to her and to Terry. By way of toasting their impending arrival, a week’s worth of tantalizing Dud Avocado fortune cookies starts…right now.