The Book of Jude

A brilliant young woman's fight against a debilitating psychological illness is set against the historical events of the Prague Spring and the anti-Soviet struggles in Czechoslovakia. When Jude's mother gets a fellowship to go to Prague to study, Jude's world is thrown into chaos. The teenage girl feels threatened and isolated. It turns out her whole family is going, but still Jude feels adrift. When she arrives in Prague and discovers that their life in the embassy compound is closely circumscribed by rules and regulations and that they are closely watched at all times, she begins to suffer even more. Desperate to break out of the constraints imposed on her and her family, Jude sneaks out one night only to encounter a security crackdown on students and dissenters. Although she makes it home safely, her consciousness continues to deteriorate as she fluctuates in and out of rationality. Only when Jude steals a friend's car and drives into the countryside does the true seriousness of her condition become apparent to her family. Then the long road to recovery begins.

The violence of our parting flays the skin from my body, shredding muscle and splintering bone. But the worst is that my shattered vessel can no longer hold the rhythm and order of that lovely deep music. I feel it leave me, leaking away, drop by drop, until all that is left is emptiness that jerks, hardens, and blazes into pain.

I open my eyes. I am lying in the street, my cheek held fast by the grit of asphalt, support for which I am grateful. Lexy is there, and Merry, but no order, no sense.
Sirens. Jostling. Pain like a knife at my heart. —FROM THE BOOK