Writing a book is nothing like publishing a weekly paper, but it’s finally done

By John Toth

The Bulletin

People have urged me for a long time to write a book about my childhood - growing up in three different countries and immigrating to the United States in 1967.

About a decade ago, I started toying with the idea and started writing down what I went through after my mother and I escaped from Hungary and landed in Vienna, Austria.

I kept asking myself, why would people be interested in reading about my childhood escapades? There were better stories to tell by Hungarian refugees who made it to the West and started new lives after the 1956 Revolution, which was put down by the Soviet Union.

I used to play soccer on weekends with Hungarians who participated in the revolution and then fled across an open border after it failed. Had they not, chances were that they would have been imprisoned or even executed.

Those guys were really good soccer players. I was a lousy one who had to ask for playing minutes, while the former revolutionaries were trying to win the game. During a close game, one guy lit a cigarette in midfield, took a few puffs and proceeded to score a goal. It was a humbling sight.

After being invited by a few area groups that asked me to talk about my country-hopping childhood, I put it all in perspective. The 1956 refugees walked across an open border, and Western officials, including Vice President Richard Nixon, were waiting to greet them.

My mother and I escaped 10 years later, and by that time, Nixon had left, along with all the others. The border was sealed and equipped with guard towers, German shepherds, minefields and barbed-wire, high-voltage fences. It became a lot trickier to get out of this Soviet bloc nation.

A lot of people tried it and were gunned down. Physically escaping through the border was not such a good option. Those who wanted out needed to find another way. My mother found one, and she took me with her.

She was my hero, and she totally changed my life with this one decision. The plan took about two years to piece together. If nothing else, I thought I should write a book to honor her memory and show what a risk she took and how brave she was. So, I started writing my book about eight or nine years ago.

But things happened, like family matters, running businesses, Bulletin press run deadlines, and many other things that kept cutting into my attempt to make decent progress. It was the last thing that I planned to do each day, and by that time, I really just wanted to get some rest.

But slowly, the book started to take shape. It was getting to the point that I was just about done a few months ago, and I set it aside again.

Then my daughter, Stephanie Gizella Johnson, recommended that I hire a book editor she had met, and we set up a meeting. We made a deal, and the only task on my part that remained was to send over the done chapters and finish the book.

That’s when I realized that each chapter needed to be redone, some more than others, and I started rewriting and editing them before I sent them to the book editor to be edited and finalized. I kept wanting to rewrite parts of it, and the book was never going to be finished, it seemed, so I put on the brakes.

Two more chapters had to be written. That took another two weeks. I did speed things up by staying up at nights and working on the chapters on the weekend.

Done, sort of. I was told that I still needed a biography, foreword and photos from the time my mother and I were in Vienna, waiting for a country to accept us. I got that all done, and it’s now really done.

Why would I need a book editor when I publish a weekly newspaper? I was writing a book, not my newspaper column. Book and weekly newspaper publishing have very little in common. I needed help from someone who handles book publishing for a living.

I have not settled on a title yet, but the book is on track to be published in May.

I’ll keep you posted.

(What do you think of this story or other features in The Bulletin? Please email me at john.bulletin@gmail.com)