In Aftershocks, Wheeler recreates the calamity through the eyes of the people of San Francisco: an architect more concerned with what the destruction spells for his career than what it means to his family; a photographer who captures the history of the moment in the faces of the stricken rather than in the rubble of buildings; a city engineer whose involvement in the corruption of the city's municipal government returns to take an awful toll; a missionary who has faith in God's love to aid the refugees but who cannot find a place for the love of a fellow human being; a soldier obsessed with getting rich from the helpless, despairing people he is supposed to help.