Bob Dubois is a proper Northerner who finally burns out on his New Englander lifestyle. He moves to Florida for a different flavor of life. He takes a job at a liquor store that his brother owns, but before long, he is attacked by a violent robber and is forced to defend himself. He shoots the intruder. He is amazed by how many African-American people there are in Florida, much more than he was used to before, and he starts dating a nurse who is African-American.
Meanwhile, Bob ends up in a lucrative relationship with local smuggler Avery Boone. Boone smuggles drugs into the Florida Keys, and lately, they have been smuggling refugees from Haiti. Bob's relationship to Marguerite Dill, his lover, comes to an anti-climactic end when she bears him a child and he realizes that he does not really want a family. We learn that Bob's brother, Eddie, has been having serious financial difficulties, and when he eventually loses his wife, he commits suicide.
We meet Vanise Dorsinville, a second protagonist in the novel. Having lived through a terrible and traumatic life as a prostitute in Haiti, she seeks asylum in America. She emigrates illegally on Bob Dubois's boat. They are discovered by the Coast Guard off the coast of Florida, and everyone on the boat is intercepted. Bob is put in a split-second decision to try and save someone's life or spare his own life, and he takes the bullet and dies. Vanise makes it all the way to Florida.
