The House of Journalists is renowned as a place of refuge for exiled writers who have fallen foul of oppressive regimes. Julian Snowman, its overzealous founder, struggles to preserve this sanctuary in a hostile political climate as he also strives to stabilize himself. While the exiled fellows share their tales of tragedy and heroism and seek to capture a lost sense of home, domestic writers flock to the house. Only one man manages to guard his past, the mysterious new fellow, AA, whom Julian suspects of conspiring with a visiting writer, the iconoclastic Ted Crumb.