It is late July, 1919. Sanyi, a handsome vegetarian butcher and an assistant labourer of the Communist Party, sets out for Vienna to carry out a secret mission. He has the destiny of the proletarian revolution in his hands. But the revolution soon fails and from that moment on all of his activity becomes illegal. The dramatic changes set in motion a bloody comedy complete with strange disguises and false identities. But once a liar always a liar. Sanyi had nothing left but his syphilis after the failure of the proletarian revolution. However, he starts again, building a new life with a wife, a daughter and two sons, but keeping secret his real communist self even from his own family. Despite all the differences within this right-wing family, by 1945 Sanyi’s only aim was to keep them alive. Gingerly manoeuvring through the world of politics, he survives the bloody decades of Hungarian history up until 1956. Although, after almost 40 years of devotion to the Communist cause, Sanyi starts to have his doubts and with good reason… The novel turns the elements of the original Monte Cristo story upside down, for it is not a tale about revenge but about political stupidity.’
