California Four O'Clock

It's 1955 and Delores Sarjeant has just found her calling: taking pictures of the gorgeous Sammi Brill. Sammi got her start in modeling working for Delores s dad, the famous pin-up painter Gael Sarjeant. Delores and Sammi have a special rapport, creating some of the most indelible, iconic images of the fifties. Delores knows just the way to bring a flush to Sammi s cheek before turning the camera on her.

Too bad Gael is going to explode if Delores tries to sell any of those photos. And Sammi won't sign a model release. And Delores is living in her parent's house, about to turn thirty, with no way to support herself. She has to choose: stability with the long-term partner she spurned, or independence and heart-racing excitement with Sammi?

California Four O Clock is a stylish, gripping family drama set in mid-century Los Angeles. It's about painting vs. photography, queer identity in a time of great repression, California's car obsession, and that big bang moment of culture being forged by a shutter click. It's about about daughters and fathers, daughters and mothers, lovers and partners, and what it s like to fight the ghost of a self you haven t yet outgrown.

California Four O'Clock is a beautifully designed hardbound book, produced in a limited edition of 500 copies.

It has an illustration at the top of every chapter by the incredbile Vicki Nerino, full-color wraps also illustrated by her, and a lush interior, designed for both a great reading experience, and as an object in of itself.

Martin McClellan is a novelist and designer. He's the co-founder of The Seattle Review of Books (seattlereviewofbooks.com), and works as a Senior UX Designer for BreakingNews.com. Find out more about him at martinmcclellan.com, twitter.com/hellbox or on facebook.com/martinmcclellan.