The town of Goodnight by the Sea lies on a peninsula between two bays, Red Moon and Humosa, and for years its people have struggled to get by, profiting on its shrimping industry, making a few bucks from tourism, especially as a winter retreat for visitors from the Great Lakes. All that is about to change. The shrimping industry is in a slump. The off-shore oil fields are played out. Global warming is causing the sea levels to rise, putting the vacation homes and condos at risk of catastrophic storms. When Gabriel Perez, a local shrimper, gets laid off, he looks for someone to blame. The rich tourists are an easy target for his job woes, but thats not his only problem: He also manages to lose his girlfriend, Una Vu, a Vietnamese-American waitress, who is disgusted with both the smallness of her life and Gabriels petty anger. Gabriel blames Falk Powell, a teenage co-worker of Unas, for stealing her heart.
Meanwhile Falk gets credit for discovering and photographing a giant fish beached on the shore, a huge creature that has swallowed a horse. Falks employer, the Russian migr and entrepeneur Gusef Smurov, has the giant fish taxidermied and mounted on the roof of his restaurant, The Black Tooth Caf, and makes it into a tourist attraction. But before he can enjoy its benefits, a devastating hurricane hits Goodnight. A storm surge swamps the coastline, catching many off-guard. By the end, Gabriel has his vengeance, but the people of Goodnight are not defeated.