Peck & Peck: A Novel
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE, COUNTRY LIVING, AND BOOKPAGE
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of global sensation Lessons in Chemistry returns with an irresistible, delightful, and tender literary novel set in the publishing world of 1980s New York City about a young man whose life turns upside down when he is hired by the most prestigious, secretive, and dysfunctional poetry journal in the world: the renowned Peck & Peck.
Find originality. Reward creativity. Burn the rest.
It’s 1982, New York City. Crime is on the rise, muggings are in the streets, and Batter Gray, recent college graduate with a skill that no one wants—an “ear” for poetry—is worried about his future. While all of 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 Sallie 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 thirty-nine editors, whose professed mission is the same: Find originality. Reward creativity. Burn the rest.
And by burn, they mean incinerate. Because at Peck & Peck, “good” isn’t good enough, “interesting” doesn’t cut it, plagiarists aren’t tolerated, and parolees run the mailroom. Still want to submit your poem? Go with God.
Welcome to another dazzling and unforgettable novel from Bonnie Garmus. If you loved Lessons in Chemistry, you will love Peck & Peck.
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Community Reviews
“‘I’m about to show you something really special…No, you cannot check it out. No, you cannot drink chocolate milk anywhere in its vicinity. No, you may not underline anything. You can only sit right there…and read it in front of me. When recess is up, you must return it directly to me. Got it?’ Then she unlocked a cabinet behind her desk and withdrew the slim journal like it was the Holy Grail. ‘It’s called Peck & Peck.’”
Fifteen years later, Batter (no, that’s not a nickname; yes, he was named after a dog) Gray finds himself at the front doors of Peck & Peck, “Standing at the crux of a three-way intersection, a very thin, very elegant, five-story building rose defiantly from its triangular lot envelope as if challenging the dirty skyscrapers that sat fat and crass on its neighboring corners…it was defined by a series of huge French doors, all of which were set at regular intervals—six to every side and story—and each framed in limestone and opening out to spidery-black balconies…illuminated by an old zinc lamp, was the company name, etched in a familiar typeface.”
“I must have read the name five times before I could say it out loud. ‘Peck & Peck’...Like a sort of architectural antidepressant, it lifted my spirits and filled me with awe…That’s what good environments do: they inspire people to carry on despite great odds; to reach for something better because the walls and windows insist it’s possible.” Fragility is “strength, camouflaged…That’s why the egg is synonymous with poetry. The most delicate-looking package isn’t delicate at all—it can’t be, because it houses the most potent material…Peck & Peck is the eggshell. Protect, then publish.”
“I think of great poets as oracles.” Peck & Peck is based on “the idea that wisdom still exists—that it’s still being written.” The editors stop giving in to passivity and get to work “in a room filled with eggs, beneath a dome that demanded equality, in a building that refused to budge, in pursuit and protection of three things. Originality. Beauty. Substance. It doesn’t take a shadow box full of dodo eggs to teach us—anything less is extinction.”
Bonnie Garmus’ Peck & Peck is a tour de force.
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