Duane McGuane, ex-journalist and owner of the Portia, an art house in Uptown New Orleans, has a vision while standing on the Mississippi River levee near the French Quarter that it is time to move on and produce his own film: The Southern Guide to Self-Improvement. The production of the film is accelerated by the arrival of Hurricane Katrina a few days later. Duane’s efforts to survive Katrina and its aftermath bring him into alliance with his girlfriend Maybelle, his theater projectionist Moon-Ra, his Welsh lawyer Rhys, the hustler kid Boy Jack, a voudou preacher’s son Paulus, and their extended families and friends throughout the city.

After a terrifying night seeking shelter in the Convention Center, helped along by Scheherazade-like tales to ward off fear and intruders, the group now called the Portia Family­ decides to head to Texas, where Duane has been gifted a mysterious ranch in the Big Bend by his old friend Carlos, whom he hasn’t seen since Duane’s insurgent gun-smuggling days in Mexico. Duane tells the Portia family they can start a new life and help make his movie.

They head out in a stolen church van, joining the thousands of evacuees from Katrina who can no longer stay in New Orleans as it struggles to recover. Their flight takes them from the city to nearby bayou towns, through Cajun country, into the racist fringes of western Louisiana and East Texas, and a pause in San Antonio to regroup. When they travel to the Rio Grande Valley, another surprise that will affect all their destinies awaits. Increasingly torn by their decisions and consequences, they press on to the mountains and deserts of the Trans-Pecos to find Duane’s new land. There, they encounter more surprises—spiritual, deadly, and transformative. Some who started the expedition never return to New Orleans. Others are pulled home by the city, as is its way, to pursue their own journeys through life in the time of hurricanes.