It was supposed to be like any other road trip: Portland to Providence, see the band, and back home. When Ellie and Alex find themselves alone the morning after, their friend Jack missing, they are forced to decide just how far they are willing to chase his vanishing trail. Set in an alternate-history 2005 where much of the northeast has been wracked by civil strife, Out Past the Bright Lights follows a group of young people adrift after college, trying to find their place in a world that seems to be slowly but inexorably falling apart around them.