The Accidental Dissident begins with Ivan, who struggles with his sense of freedom after spending twenty-two years in a Soviet labor camp, a time he mentally revisits. He wants to use storytelling as a form of enforced accountability for the man he sees as responsible for his incarceration, but it is unclear if his account is reliable.
The reader is then introduced to Milos, who is Hungary’s most famous political dissident but is wracked by self-doubt over his authenticity. He is struggling with writer’s block in part because his work about love and beauty is constantly misunderstood as political allegory. Milos’s books are described and we see how he became the titular ‘accidental dissident.’
The novel then introduces the third key perspective, that of Juliska, who is reeling from Milos leaving her for a younger woman. Milos then tries a theatrical stunt to overcome his block, but this only makes him doubt his own authenticity even more and realize his error in leaving Juliska. She tries to heal and rebuffs Milos’s entreaties to return; but later she reads something on the front page of the New York Times that prompts her to take him back. We then learn that Ivan is gathering evidence against Milos but he is being foiled by a Soviet coverup from years ago.
The novel then travels back in time to 1960s Budapest, seeing Milos and Juliska’s relationship develop, from each of their perspectives, which gives a more sympathetic portrayal of the selfish Milos. It then goes back even further to 1950s Budapest, where we witness the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 from the perspective of each of the characters as children, and how it shapes their political views as university students in the 1960s.
As the tenth anniversary of the Soviet crackdown approaches, Juliska and Ivan are involved in subversive activities, which Milos becomes embroiled in, setting the scene for Milos to betray Ivan. In the present, Milos stands accused before the world but nevertheless Ivan fails to achieve his vengeful goal.
In the final chapters, each of the three characters struggle with the consequences: Milos and Juliska with their guilt and denial; Ivan with his frustration at the lack of accountability and the hypocrisy of the literary world, which wants Milos to be a hero and not a villain. In the end, Milos does face his past, but as much as an act of storytelling than one of contrition.
Intertwined with this action, the novel presents three very different views of the role of storytelling. It explores themes of misunderstandings, both comic and tragic; reinvention versus being haunted by the past; selfishness versus commitment—to both people and ideas; superficiality versus authenticity; and oppression versus freedom.