When, after a four-year absence, seventeen-year-old Squid returns to her childhood home on a remote lighthouse island off British Columbia with her young daughter in tow, she and her parents try to come to terms with each other and the painful events of the past, especially the death of her older brother.

While Stolly struggles to regain consciousness in a hospital bed, Ian recalls some of their best and worst times together as he writes a biography of his eccentric best friend.