Says Kate Christensen, Winner of the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: “Oliver Pepper Pickle ... is a touching love story that will make you spit out your food laughing when you least expect it. John C. Picardi is an original.”

“Picardi has created a delicate yet emotional story that sneaks up on you like a lovely relationship, evolving slowly and gracefully, ‘peppered’ with hope and despair, and above all, humanity,” says Steven Cooper, Author of Deadline and Saving Valencia. “Picardi reveals his characters so subtly, so artfully, that suddenly you realize they are a part of your family. I loved this book.”

First-time novelist Picardi has received lavish praise from such newspapers as the New York Times and the L.A. Times for his work as a playwright.

Oliver Pepper leads a simple life. Each night he can be found sitting alone, taking nips from his flask, in a cluttered study he alone finds appealing. His contemplation ends abruptly when his wife reveals an extended cyber-affair and he is fired from his job teaching Art History at a girls’ prep school. Crushed by his wife’s infidelity, suffocated by his sister and her new-age boyfriend, and harassed by all the friends and strangers who think his salvation depends on a crazy self-help book—The Castration of the 20th Century Man: How to Grow a New Set for the 21st Century—Oliver Pepper’s life is in comic disarray. Then, at an AA meeting, he meets Rosa, a se*xy public school principal. Hoping to date her, he agrees to teach a riotous middle-school class. At Rosa’s school, Oliver meets two troubled boys. By helping them, he comes to terms with the traumatic loss of his father and discovers a capacity for bringing unadulterated goodness—even beauty—into his world.

John C. Picardi is the author of the awarding winning play, The Sweepers, and Seven Rabbits on a Pole. His plays are published by Samuel French and have been produced off-Broadway and across the United States. He is a graduate of Johnson & Wales University, where he majored in Culinary Arts. He later graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Boston with a degree in English and Creative Writing and earned an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. He lives in Massachusetts. You can find John online at johncpicardi.com.

Oliver Pepper’s Pickle is available in Kindle ($5.95) and paperback editions on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon Japan, and at select Barnes & Noble and independent bookstores. Bookstores and libraries can order by contacting info@camelpress.com or through Ingram. Other electronic versions can be purchased on Smashwords, BN.com or at any of the major online eBook stores.

ABOUT Camel Press—Based in Seattle Washington, Camel Press is a new imprint owned by Coffeetown Press. Camel Press publishes genre fiction: romance, mystery/suspense, science fiction … or any combination thereof. We publish the books that grab you and hold you in their grip long into the night.