After a resounding failure in both commercial and bias criticism she made for Estee Lauder, writer Lee Israel sees himself in the face of very big financial problems, acute inspirational crisis, and focuses his attention on excessive consumption of alcohol. Her agent, unable to give him an advance to make a new biography, Israel has to sell her valuable goods to cover the expenses she makes.
She sells a personal letter she received from Katharine Hepburn to a bookmaker named Anna. When she is in the process of writing another biography about actress and comedian Fanny Brice, Israel finds by chance a letter from Brice in a book. She shows Anna that letter, and she offers it a lower price because the contents of the letter are not very interesting.
Israel sees an opportunity in this scheme and begins to falsify letters from several deceased personalities, inserting the invented picants from their intimate life and scandalous details to be as exciting as possible for consumers and thus to make more money on they. Anna, who is a fan of Lee’s writing style, tries to start a romantic relationship with her, but she is rejected. This business enjoys unexpected success, but it’s also totally illegal, so it does not take long before the FBI agencies come through.