Adrien Winckler, a renowned author under the pseudonym Mody, has published his first novel. However, he has been struggling to find inspiration for a while and is now experiencing the dreaded syndrome of writer's block. To survive, he takes up the "black hat" profession of writing anonymous novels, which many consider to be valuable literature. Despite this, Adrien finds himself embroiled in a scandal involving Albert Desiderio, a modest retired man who suffers from a severe sexually transmitted disease. This incident has taken up most of his remaining time and left him with little else to write about.