A week in the life of Paterson, a poet bus driver, and his wife Laura, a very creative artist, who live in Paterson, New Jersey, hometown of many famous poets and artists.
When a bestselling celebrity biographer is no longer able to get published because she has fallen out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception.
With the city in peril following the seawall's collapse, Oswald "Oz" Cobb seeks to fill the power vacuum left by the death of Carmine Falcone and finally give his mother Francis the life he's always promised. But first, Oz must confront his enemies and his own demoralizing reputation as "the Penguin."
