After reading through the text, they believed it would definitely make for one of the more exciting chapters in their own book.

‘I’m proud of the work we did. But looking back, I think we shouldn’t have signed up for it. It started Márton down a path that led to his end.’

The relevant chapter is brief, at times lacking style or coherence. It is a work in progress, just like the book the text is about. Presumably it would have been extended and fleshed out in line with the entirety of the book. All dates and city names had been crossed out with a black marker, therefore the two authors make no reference to the city in question in their own manuscript either. Perhaps at the time of final editing they would have provided the name of the location. Júlia Nagy claims that the city is Nyíregyháza, in the eastern part of the country, but she says she cannot be entirely sure. It could be any city or town anywhere in Hungary.

THE UNFINISHED BOOKS OF HUNGARY – excerpts

(authors: Márton Kopaszhegyi-Kézi and Júlia Nagy)

Most books don’t come about by way of a commission; most books come to be through their author’s desire. The final product is like a child born of an illicit relationship, a relationship that is equally joyous and painful. Some authors’ desire to write their book is so great it consumes their lives and often the lives of those around them. I believe that was the case with Balázs Peterfy’s book, entitled On the Stage Tonight – Local Rock History. Most of these labors of love go sour once they hit an editor’s desk – they turn out to be amateurish, dire little things that are better left forgotten. This book, however, could well have enjoyed the fortunate combination of both passion and the financial guarantee of publishing. Nonetheless, life had other plans. While in most cases it is either politics, financial issues, or a swift change in readers’ tastes that prevents the publishing of a book already accepted by an editor, in this case the work remained unfinished due to the unfortunate disappearance of the writer.

Balázs Peterfy was born in 1980, the only child of a wealthy middle-class family. He went to high school in ——, got good grades, then graduated with a degree in law at —— University. His adult years were overshadowed by tragedy: he lost his parents to a car accident. Two years after the incident he set out to write his book.