More than a decade after the end of WWII, the joie de vivre of the Cajun-French culture returns to southwest Louisiana. Spirits are buoyed, and for twelve-year-old Walt LaCour, life is idyllic-except for the caustic relationship with his father. A discovery of a paternity scandal makes Walt wonder if it's true that a German POW could be his real father. The days before the storm, Walt and his family try to protect his friend's Stradivarius violin from being stolen until Hurricane Audrey hits taking with her nearly 500 lives and every shred of normalcy Walt had ever called his own.

In this fictionalized memoir, an aged Walt LaCour begins with his childhood desperation to find his roots, firmly believing that knowing his history will bring him a separate kind of peace. As Hurricane Audrey pummels his home town, he braves 20-foot tidal waves and eventually comes face-to-face with his own mortality. Later, as a college student, a mysterious classmate taunts him with knowledge of secrets Walt has never told another living soul, and Walt begins to suspect that there was more to his experience in the hurricane than he ever realized.