Cameron Carlyle is good at his job. Better than good. He might be even better at partying. But his heart's not in the daytime work or the nighttime play. Instead, he dreams of bursting onto the literary scene with an ambitious novel about 9/11 and its aftermath. It's his bubble that bursts, however, when in rapid succession his Midwestern community is devastated by flooding, his job goes off the rails, and he loses his publisher. Cameron Carlyle is no quitter. He hatches a new plan-one that gives his story another shot and might just change his life. Cameron and his friends pile into a car and set out for the East Coast. Along the way, he'll be haunted by his past even as he seeks another shot at charting his future. The Brown Bottle Squeeze captures the consuming quest for identity-both for the individual and for the country.