This is a short story collection in which each chapter is its own story.
In Chapter One, "The Stowaway," there is a retelling of the biblical legend of Noah and the Ark. In the original story, God tells Noah that he is ending the world by flood, and he has chosen to save Noah and some animals so that the world can continue on afterward. This is that story told from the point of view of two woodworms who were not allowed on the boat (because it was made of wood), but who have stowed away. In the next chapter, the "stowaway" story grows into a full-blown hijacking; Chapter Two, "The Visitors" is about another boat, a cruise ship, being hijacked by terrorists.
Chapter Three, "The Wars of Religion" returns to the story of the woodworms. They are in trouble with the church because their natural function (eating wood) has left the church building unstable. They are on trial defending themselves by saying they are only obeying their natural design.
Chapter Four, "The Survivor" takes the reader into the well-known disaster of the Chernobyl power plant nuclear meltdown. The protagonist of the story is convinced by journalists that the meltdown will lead to all out nuclear holocaust, and so he escapes to the sea on a boat.
Chapter Five, "Shipwreck" begins with an elaborate explanation of Gericault's famous painting, "The Raft of the Medusa" detailing the various stories of the figures depicted. The shipwreck is described from various points of view, and then the painting itself is analyzed. The narrator describes the painting as an act of containment, making the intensity of the shipwreck more easily digestible.
Chapter Six is called "The Mountain." Here we meet a religious woman who wants to make some sort of atonement for her deceased father's spirit in the afterlife. She visits a mountain monastery and attempts to contact God on behalf of her father's spirit.
Chapter Seven is called, "Three Simple Stories," because it tells three stories that are similar and related. There is the story of the Titanic, the sinking cruise liner, the story of Jonah and the Whale (from the Bible; the story is of a prophet thrown overboard and saved from death by a big fish who vomits him three days later), and then the story of Jewish refugees being denied access to the United States while struggling to survive at sea.
Chapter Eight, "Upstream!" tells of an actor who goes to a jungle to film a movie. It is epistolary, and the letters are continually more abstract as the story progresses. He tells of the crew of the film, and their various comings and goings, and then he details a horrifying scene where one of his friends drowns in a rafting accident. Appended to this story is a parenthetical, metafictional essay about the narrator's opinion of love. The narrator discusses various artworks, including a poem by Philip Larkin. This is the half-chapter from the title.
Chapter Nine, "Project Ararat," is a space story about an astronaut named Spike Tiggler who mans an expedition to recover Noah's Ark. The trip is sublime and makes connections to other stories in the collection. Chapter Ten, the final installment of the book, is called, "The Dream," and offers a full-blown depiction of the heavenly realm and the afterlife.
