It’s April 1st, 1919, and the young independent publisher John Pace Seavering is setting up his office: a couple of dilapidated rooms in a Manhattan tower. With only enough capital to publish one book, John finds himself besieged by two authors. Denny McCleary, John’s brash and gifted college friend, has produced a manuscript so large, it lives in a trio of crates. .
But John is also being lobbied to publish the memoirs of Jessie Brewster, the popular black jazz singer who is also John’s very secret mistress. As John deals with these two, another drama is playing out in the outer office--a mysterious machine has arrived and is spewing out stacks of pages while John’s hapless assistant strives vainly to stem the flood.
However, what's written on these pages will throw John’s every hope and plan into disarray!