In the winter of 1991, Emily Runbird is compelled to leave graduate school for a position as a postal clerk in the Gulf War. She also leaves her lover, another graduate student named Victor Gardner, who has more than his share of trouble on the home front after Jude Bush, an undergraduate with a curious past, embarks on a mad campaign to seduce him. Meanwhile, Emily has made it clear that her true love is Victor's middle-aged and possibly deranged thesis advisor, Boris Urquhart.
