Max Normane is the kind of woman that less-creative individuals might call a "Type A" personality. Her eye for the undiscovered literary gem is famous, and she repeatedly demonstrates this ability in "URBANITY," the literary magazine over which she presides. When she meets Jake Benjamin, a talented but struggling writer whose previous attempts at getting published have been sabotaged by his own egocentric idiosyncrasies and lousy attitude, she offers him a mutually-beneficial solution of Faustian proportions: his seed in exchange for publication. In other words: she'll give life to his child if he gives life to hers. Despite Jake's shock and outrage at such blackmail, this bizarre opportunity for long-awaited literary success is too good for the frustrated artist to pass up. As Jake reaches ever higher echelons of renown and Max's tightly-organized world devolves into the mess of single parenthood, something truly horrific happens - they begin to fall aggressively, angrily, absurdly in love.