The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Robinson, Eden. Monkey Beach. Vintage Canada, 2001.

Monkey Beach begins with an epigraph of a Haisla proverb which reads, "It is possible to retaliate against an enemy, But impossible to retaliate against storms" (i). The novel is divided into four parts. The first and longest part is “Love Like the Ocean.” The story begins at the Hills’ house in Kitimaat, the morning after the family received news that their son Jimmy has gone missing at sea. The nearly-20-year-old narrator, Lisamarie Michelle Hill, stays behind at the family house with an aunt while her parents make their way to the part of the British Columbia coast where the search for her brother is happening.

The narration slips into the past and the tenses follow suit. Lisa recalls a boat trip that her and her family took to Monkey Beach as a child. Jimmy was racing around, desperate to hopefully run into a B'gwus -- the Haisla version of a sasquatch -- and take its picture, which would inevitably make his family rich.

Around the same time in her early childhood, a man came to the door on her mother's birthday. When Lisa's mom finally came to the door to see who was there she was shocked by what she saw. It turns out that the man is Lisa's father's brother, Uncle Mick. The family had not heard from Uncle Mick in years and thought that he had been in prison.

Lisa perpetually got into fights at school. After a particularly nasty one with a boy named Frank, they both end up in the hospital.

Ma-ma-oo, Lisa's paternal grandmother, took Lisa down logging roads in her truck to collect varieties of berries, roots, and other plants with medical properties. One day, Ma-ma-oo took Lisa out in her motorboat to Monkey Beach, where they lit a fire and provided offerings for Ba-ba-oo's birthday, Lisa's grandfather who passed away before she was born.

On a fishing trip with the family, Lisa heard ghosts talking to her for the first time. The family stayed in a small house that used to be an outpost for checking their traplines. That night, Uncle Mick yelled out "Cookie" repeatedly in his sleep and then Lisa heard her uncle crying. Later that afternoon, as Lisa is coming back into the house after scampering through the woods, she saw her uncle come up behind her mother, slide his hands around her waist, and then give her a kiss on the neck.

One morning, Mick asked Lisa to come check his fishing lines out in the bay with him. Lisa declined, saying she had a bad night. She was woken up by the little man, a small red-haired creature who comes into her bedroom as a premonition before bad things happen. Later that day, Mick's body was found in his fishing net, but only after the seals and fish had gotten at him, eating one of his arms and one of his legs.

The first part ends in the present day, with Lisa filling jerry cans of gas for her speedboat, heading out towards Monkey Beach to find Jimmy.

The second part, titled "The Song of Your Breath," begins in the wake of Mick's death. Lisa has fallen into a depression. Jimmy, at this point an Olympic hopeful, does not seem to be phased by his Uncle's passing. She does poorly in school, her grieving compounded by Frank bullying her. At one point, Lisa got into a fight with Big Lou, after which all the kids ignored her. The only people who want to be her friend and Frank and his group, who take a liking to Lisa.

Just before Christmas, Lisa's cousin Tab showed up at their house. Tab hitchhiked from Vancouver to Kitimaat and Lisa cannot figure out why her parents are so angry at Tab for doing this. A few days later Tab's mother's boyfriend, Josh, came to pick her up and drove them both back down to Vancouver.

Lisa went to a party where she ran into Cheese, who recently asked her out, a proposition that she declined. He offered her a sip of his beer as a peace gesture, they chatted a bit, then Lisa left the party. She started to feel dizzy, then the next thing she saw was someone over her, sexually assaulting her.

Ma-ma-oo had a heart attack after which her health rapidly began to decline. Lisa saw ghosts everywhere in the house when she went to visit her grandmother. Ma-ma-oo saw them too and knows that they are waiting for her. One day, the village fire alarm began to ring and Lisa could not pinpoint where it was coming from until she got back to her house and heard a neighbor say that it was coming from old Agnes Hill's house. Ma-ma-oo accidentally lit her house on fire while cooking bacon and burned to death. Lisa inherits all her money.

The third part, "In Search of the Elusive Sasquatch" opens with Lisa recalling the time she spent in Vancouver after Ma-ma-oo's death. With the money she inherited, Lisa headed to Vancouver to lose herself and numb the pain she felt. After a particularly rough night, she woke up in a hotel room that she did not recognize. Her cousin Tab, who was being hostile towards Lisa, is with her. Tab then informed Lisa that the previous evening she was killed by a group of redneck men, and that she had come back as a ghost to tell Lisa to get her life together and go back to Kitimaat. Lisa drove back up the Coast with Frank after they ran into each other and he informed her of Pooch's suicide. Lisa returned to her parents’ house where she enrolled herself in high school, determined to finish grade 11.

The final part, "The Land of the Dead," ends in the present, with Lisa on Monkey Beach, communicating with her loved ones who have passed away, all encouraging her to go back home and leave the world of the dead.