The Year in Reading: Mohamed Asem

In The Dud Avocado, Sally Jay Gorce, a young American girl eager to live life to the fullest, goes on a romp through Paris in the 1950s. She hangs out in bars and cafes, runs into all types of characters, falls in and out of love, gets caught up in all sorts of random situations, and yet doesn’t come across a grumpy waiter (maybe things were different back in the day). All the same, it was good fun tagging along with Sally Jay–she’s an entertaining narrator.

Part of the fun I experienced came from recognizing many of the places she frequents. Having grown up in Paris, I could clearly situate and follow her around the city. But the Paris described in the novel, and the Paris I remembered from my childhood, was nothing like that of the. Shuttered stores and deserted streets, landmarks looking forlorn in the quiet around them. Paris had gone empty and silent. Portland, the city I live in, was also in lockdown and not much different. At times I could forget what was going on in the world and just lose myself in , but at other times, when the present and future weighed heavily on my mind, I couldn’t read the novel without feeling an ache, a yearning for the cinema experience, the cafe and dining experience; the company of friends and family–life before the pandemic.