I didn't speak until I was seven. I didn't feel the need, May tells us on page one of How To Survive A Natural Disaster, a story of family rivalry, betrayal, violence, and forgiveness told in six voices. May, the strange, silent Peruvian orphan who is adopted and brought to a leafy suburb north of Chicago at six months old to mend the lives of an already troubled family, might not talk, but as her Grandma Jack observes, "That baby studies people." Next, we hear from May's mother Roxanne, who hopes a baby and religion will fix her marriage; May's father Craig, an artist who'd rather be anywhere but home until he falls in love with this strange dark child, April; May's beautiful brilliant adored older sister who wants to be an actress and who appears "to breathe light like some benign dragon;" Mr. Cosmo, their three- legged Weimaraner; and Phoebe, the morbidly depressed, morbidly obese, agoraphobic neighbor who is the one who finally must rise to the occasion when May finds her father's loaded gun hidden under his dirty laundry. As each voice makes a case for his or her own side of the story the reader learns that blood ties aren't what make a family and that sometimes survival is only possible through forgiveness.