In The Craigslist Incident, Edna Barrett takes an advertisement out on Craigslist: I'm an 18-year-old female and I want to take a hit out on myself. Joe Dolsen, a 20-year-old who has suffered from periodic blackouts his whole life, answers the ad. What would bring two people to such ominous points at such young ages, and will they actually go through with it?

Edna, raised by a single mother after the suicide of her father, repeatedly finds herself kicked out of schools for violent altercations that don't seem to be her fault. Finally, living a solitary life in rural Minnesota and taking classes online, she falls passionately in text-love with another outsider, Shane, whose obsession with Edna sends off alarm signals to her world-weary mother, especially when he drives hundreds of miles to show up unannounced at their home.

Meanwhile, Joe is coming of age with an Evangelical mother who believes his probable epilepsy means he has been touched by God and uses her religiosity as justification for not seeking medical attention for her son and for remaining with his abusive father. As Joe and Edna reach adulthood struggling to make sense of their lives and losses, their dangerous tracks are set for collision.