Loss and renewal, natural and human. The coastline of Louisiana is at risk, and so is the St. Pé family. The marsh grasses in the wetlands are dying; the rich silt that held them is sinking, vanishing. And the Cajun way of life that has been sustained by this land and this water for hundreds of years is also in peril. Pierre St. Pé is an environmental engineer who has been away from home, in several respects. He returns to work on an experimental program planting grasses in the endangered wetlands. His father, stubbornly independent Paul St. Pé, is a shrimper, deeply loyal and committed to family. Paul has raised two boys: his biological child, T-Paul, and his orphaned nephew, Pierre, from whom he has been estranged for years, ever since Pierre learned he was adopted and began blaming Paul for not telling him the truth about his identity. Pierre discovers that Jolie, a strong-minded Cajun woman and the girl everyone had once assumed he would marry, is looking after Paul and commands the house—and is now engaged to T-Paul. For his part, T-Paul refuses to shrimp any more, preferring the good pay on the oil rigs, but he dreams of escaping with Jolie to begin life over in the excitement of the big city, in his case Lafayette. Affection alternates with quarreling as the days pass, until the old man’s boat catches fire close to the Gulf and sinks, leaving him to recuperate at home from burns. In the final scene, Paul has healed and is ready to return to the bayous—except that he has no boat. Pierre reveals that he has purchased a used fishing boat, which he offers. But Paul refuses, “Because if you not my son, then you a stranger, and I don’t take no charity from strangers.” They fight, as usual, except that Pierre in frustration slips and calls Paul “Papa.” They negotiate a partnership in the boat and forge a hopeful, new relationship as father and son. At the same time, however, the engagement between T-Paul and Jolie shatters under the strain of conflicting dreams, and T-Paul strikes out on his own. To comfort Jolie, Pierre suggests she join him in planting grasses, the hope for restoring the wetlands, but she is too fragile at the moment to take that step. Alienation and restoration, displacement and home, hope—and humor—in the face of what seems inevitable defeat: these four characters grapple in microcosm with what we all face in our relationships with each other and with nature.