Excellent news! My copy of The Dud Avocado just arrived, which I actually ordered six months ago on the recommendation of Terry Teachout and OGIC. Teachout wrote the introduction, which defends books that are funny in general as well as The Dud Avocado in specific, and is a plea for the book.

From him an accolade like this means a lot: “But even if The Dud Avocado is doomed to remain one of those novels that is loved by a few and unknown to everyone else, we lucky few who love it will never stop recommending it to our friends, for it is so full of charm and life and something not unlike wisdom that there will always be readers who open it up and see at once that it is just there kind of book.”

So far I’ve read about 30 pages and agree with his assessment; I’m reminded most strongly of Robertson Davies’ A Mixture of Frailties, the strongest and most mature of his Salterton Trilogy. Here’s what I wrote:

Davies better expresses complex emotion and growth in A Mixture of Frailties than in the earlier two novels, which lack the control and advanced characterization; his protagonist, Monica Gall, is more of a person and less of a placeholder or type than the characters in the first two.

Davies traces Gall’s journey away from rural Canadian roots […]

It’s too early to tell if the comparison to The Salterton Trilogy is apt or if Sally Jay Gorce is fleeing something in the manner of Monica Gall, as I’ve seen only her flouncing about in Paris, without too much about her back story, save that a rich Uncle is financing her. What I’ve read so far delights and I hope the feeling continues.

EDIT: I just wrote a fuller post on The Dud Avocado