It’s 1982, New York City. Crime is on the rise, muggings are in the streets, and Batter Gray, a recent college graduate, is worried about his future. While his friends have real jobs, he’s folding T-shirts at the Gap. As for love? No. Not unless you count Sallie Mae, the student loan tyrant he hears from all the time. But when Batter gets a dream job at Peck & Peck, the most prestigious poetry quarterly in the world, his life moves into the literary fast lane. Soon Batter is knee-deep in the secret war between the two Editors in Chief, the famous Peck brothers --- twins and enemies --- as well as being privy to the private affairs of their 39 editors, whose professed mission is the same: Find originality. Reward creativity. Burn the rest. And by burn, they mean incinerate.