Content Warning: Blackouts uses the descriptor “queer” to signify LGBTQ+ identities and reclaim queer history. It discusses anti-LGBTQ+ bias (including slurs), violence (including domestic violence, medical violence, and state-promoted violence), racism (including eugenics), fatal illness and death, attempted suicide, sexual assault (including by doctors), and sex with a minor.

Blackouts begins with an unnamed narrator—whom Juan Gay refers to by the Spanish nickname “Nene”—arriving at “the Palace” in search of Juan, who is dying. Juan asks Nene to finish his work on the life of Jan Gay (born Helen Reitman)—his adoptive mother and real-life lesbian sexologist from the 1940s, who is considered a key figure in LGBTQ+ rights—and take his room at the Palace after his death.

The novel flashbacks to Nene’s journey to the Palace. He has a friendly conversation with a bus driver as the bus grows emptier, though the man ceases conversation when he learns Nene is headed to the Palace. Nene’s mood is dampened by the experience, and he doesn’t make conversation with subsequent drivers or passengers, instead examining the landscape. He disembarks and hitchhikes the remainder of the way. He is picked up by a European couple who argue in a foreign language.