Gelder, Lawrence Van (September 26, 1997). "Shirley Clarke Is Dead at 77; Maker of Oscar-Winning Film". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved March 12, 2020.

the dud avocado reads like a witty woman's take on the sun also rises, with the pink-haired protagonist sally jay gorce, an often silly struggling ingenue, going to parties, falling in love, and trying to find herself in paris in the fifties. eventually, she goes on a road trip to spain where she ends up as an extra on a bullfighter movie, and partying some more. unfortunately, for me the book began to drag while she was there, and i found the ending was rushed, grafted on, and out of sync with the rest of the book, though i expect fans of happy endings will find it just right. American goes to some big city with dreams of conquest, hilarity ensues. Dundy’s 1958 novel (which had a huge fan in Groucho Marx) is pretty much the best and funniest example of that whole genre." —Jason Diamond, Flavorwire Take one zippy, curious, 21-year-old American named Sally Jay, just out of college. Drop her in the middle of Paris' Left Bank. Add an Italian diplomat, an American theatrical director , a couple of painters and a white slave trader. Mix until all bubbles. The result: a delightful few hours of sparkling reading entertainment. Summing up: Froth and frolic." --Newsweek 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 MarxAmong her roles as an actress, she appeared in "The Scream," a 1953 episode of the TV series Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Presents, and a BBC-TV production of Dinner at Eight as a maid: "One of those small parts an actress can do absolutely nothing with except look as pretty as possible, act as naive as possible and stay out of the way of the knives." Dundy was heard in different roles on Radio Luxembourg's Harry Lime dramas, directed by Orson Welles. [4] In 1955, Dundy and Tynan appeared together on camera, hosting the "Madrid Bullfight" episode of Around the World With Orson Welles, the documentary series Welles made for Associated-Rediffusion, a contractor for Britain's ITV commercial network. [5] Books [ edit ] The Dud Avocado follows the romantic and comedic adventures of a young American who heads overseas to conquer Paris in the late 1950s. Edith Wharton and Henry James wrote about the American girl abroad, but it was Elaine Dundy’s Sally Jay Gorce who told us what she was really thinking. Charming, sexy, and hilarious, The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status when it was first published and it remains a timeless portrait of a woman hell-bent on living. This novel is a candid portrait of a free-spirited life. Whether you're a Francophile with a Serge Gainsbourg tattoo, or someone who prefers their steak frites with freedom fries, I bet The Dud Avocado will be your next favorite read. On October 20, a new film adaptation of John Williams’s novel Butcher’s Crossing, published by NYRB Classics in 2007, will be released in select movie theaters across the U.S. Directed by Gabe Polsky, the film stars Nicolas Cage as the frontiersman Miller and Fred Hechinger... In the Guardianin August 2011, Rachel Cooke sees the Sally Jay’s life as ‘a complicated hoot’. She is not too bothered by the amoral aspects of the story. She rightly points out that no one reads this novel for the plot and enjoys the details of the heroine’s chaotic life. You can find her observations here.

In the present volume she will negotiate expat life on the Left Bank, new love, deceit and French waiters, all without smudging much mascara: The novel was based on Dundy's own experiences living in Paris and follows the misadventures of Sally Jay Gorce, a 21-year-old American graduate having love affairs and trying to break into the film industry in France. [2]

The Dud Avocado follows a charming, if blundering, 21-year-old Missouri native, Sally Jay Gorce, who spends two postcollege years sipping Pernod on “la plus belle avenue du monde,” the Champs-Élysées; staging William Saroyan and Tennessee Williams with an American theater troupe, and fumbling terribly at love.”— The New York Sun It was autobiographical enough that her husband threatened to divorce her if she wrote a second novel. She did, and he did. There are a lot of book somewhat like this one, but none of them have Dundy's touch for characterization and voice. As Ernest Hemingway wrote in a letter to the author, "I liked the way your characters all speak differently.... My characters all sound the same because I never listen." T]wo Americans re-encountering each other after a certain time in a foreign land are supposed to clamber up their nearest lampposts and wait tremblingly for it all to blow over.” But what the hell, I told myself, it wasn't as if I were one of them or even competing with them, for heaven's sake, I was merely a disinterested spectator at the Banquet of Life. The scientist dropping into the zoo at feeding time. That is what I told myself.”