The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Torres, Justin. Blackouts. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.

Justin Torres's novel Blackouts is written from the first person point of view of the unnamed protagonist. The novel is set in the twenty-first century, although the narrator never provides the exact dates during which the enclosed events take place. Throughout the novel, the author deforms conventional notions of the linear narrative plot line via frequent temporal shifts and the inclusion of photographs, erasure poems, and ancillary fragmented documents. For the sake of clarity, the following summary employs the present tense and a more traditional mode of explanation.

When the first person narrator is 27 years old, he flees Brooklyn, New York. He boards a bus and ventures out into the desert in search of his friend Juan. Ten years prior, the narrator and Juan met when they were both institutionalized at a mental hospital. Initially, the narrator was wary of spending time with Juan because Juan was significantly older. At 17, the narrator disliked being in proximity to the elderly because he did not like to be reminded of his own mortality. Contrary to his expectations, however, the narrator and Juan developed a connection during their time in the hospital. When the narrator was finally released, he found a cross necklace in his bag. Believing it to be a gift from Juan, he held on to it for the next 10 years. Shortly after misplacing the necklace, the narrator was overcome by sorrow. He wished he had said goodbye to Juan and had not lost touch with him.

The narrator finds Juan at an establishment referred familiarly to as the Palace. The narrator is unsure of the Palace's history, but guesses it may have once been a hospital or an asylum. In the present, the Palace is a charity-run place for individual's without family to care for them.

The narrator knows that Juan is dying. He is therefore determined to rekindle their connection before he loses Juan.

Not long after the two friends reunite, Juan tells the narrator that he is going to leave him a folder of mementos when he dies. The folder includes a series of photographs, scraps, newspaper clippings, and other bewildering documents. Amongst the belongings are two volumes of a book called Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns. What the narrator finds most curious about the books is that they are largely blacked out. The words that have not been redacted therefore create a new history. After his death, Juan wants the narrator to create something from these enigmatic mementos. Unsure about Juan's expectations or goals for the project, the narrator begs him to help him make sense of the documents.

Throughout the indistinguishable amount of time that follows, the narrator and Juan spend all of their time together closed into Juan's room. They primarily occupy themselves by talking, sharing ideas, and swapping stories. While Juan is willing to delve into his own personal history, the narrator is more reluctant to do so. As soon as he starts talking about his life in New York, his parents' marriage, and his relationships with his mother, father, and exes, he starts to fear that he will get lost in the past. Juan encourages him to share these stories so as to make sense of his life and identity in the present.

Intermittently, Juan also teaches the narrator about all he has learned and studied over the years. In particular, Juan talks about Jan Gay, the woman originally behind the Sex Variants studies. As a lesbian herself, Jan set out to better understand variations in sexual identifications. However, her studies were later coopted by another doctor who published the Sex Variants texts. These publications ultimately deformed Jan's original intent and mission, and exploited the subjects involved.

As Juan's death draws near, the narrator finds himself increasingly desperate to defy death. He even lets himself descend into Juan's hallucinations, memories, dreams, and visions. He does not want to let his friend go, although he is also afraid of losing control of reality.

The narrator decides to close his account with a positive memory rather than with Juan's death. On one of Juan's last lucid days, he asked the narrator to give him the mirror and to put his own face into the glass. The narrator noticed how Juan clung to the mirror and thus to his image in it.