First published 2026
Batter Gray worries about his future while his classmates pursue conventional careers like medicine and law. He wants poetry instead, something that bores most people and alienates readers. At twenty-something in New York City, Batter lands a job at Peck & Peck, the most prestigious and secretive poetry journal in the world. The company operates with extreme dysfunction despite its reputation. Batter carries his mother's dog as his namesake and the weight of losing his twin brother at birth. He faces daily contradictions between right and wrong, truth and lies, acceptance and rejection. His dead brother seems to remind him that every story has multiple sides. At Peck & Peck, thirty-nine editors believe poetry holds the key to humanity's survival, not just its power. Batter discovers there are always three sides to every story, not just two.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, books-about-books, dark-academia
Vibes: introspective, literary, melancholic, philosophical, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, found-family, multiple-perspectives, unreliable-narrator
Setting: New York City, Peck & Peck
Period: 21st-century, contemporary
432 pages · Hardcover · Scribner
Content warnings: death