On April 18, 1906, the great Golden Gate metropolis of San Francisco was struck by a devastating earthquake that leveled one of the most cultured, exciting (and, some said, wicked) cities in the United States.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.