In a bizarre Breton library that collects rejected manuscripts, a young editor discovers a novel that she considers a masterpiece. It was written by a certain Henri Pick, a cook who died two years earlier and who, according to his widow, had never read a book in his life or written anything but a shopping list. Did he have a secret life? When the book becomes a huge bestseller, Jean-Michel Rouche (Fabrice Luchini), a skeptical, stubborn literary critic, teams up with Pick's daughter Joséphine (Camille Cottin) to unravel the mystery.