In 1948, when he was nine, Nicholas Gage's mother Eleni
Gatzoyiannis was executed by Greek Communist guerrillas, The book
is presented, stagily, as the outcome of his search for her
killers: What had "her secret feelings" been? "What did she want me
to do?" "Was I capable of it?" So we revert to the village of Lia,
in mountainous northern Greece, for the story of Eleni's marriage
to Greek-American Christos, her wartime trials, and the greater
horror of Communist occupation. At her mother's insistence, Eleni
had remained in Lia, a decision Christos accepted. "A woman was
judged by her sense of duty to her aged parents almost as much as
her dedication to her children." It's traditional, too, for the
local men to emigrate in search of work. Christos' modest American
earnings make them well-to-do in Lia, while his periodic visits
yield four girls and, finally, a son. On his last prewar visit
Eleni, restive, begs him to take them back with him; but - she
recognizes bitterly - he has come to prefer things as they are.
Then, with the Germans' arrival, "her lifeline to Christos" snaps.
There will be years of hunger, grudgingly assuaged by her miserly
miller-father. The Germans will burn most of the village. And,
crucially, communism will come - spread by the local teachers, who
organize Resistance groups. "Except for the unfortunate incident
with the Kollios boy, the villagers welcomed the presence of the
guerrillas, not only for the new purpose and importance it gave to
their lives, but also for the diversions it added to the dull daily
routine." (Here, Gage's tot's-eye-view serves well.) Most of the
fighting, however, is against right-wing guerrillas; three unlikely
British peace-keepers arrive (the nervous, harried Scots lieutenant
has a breakdown); the worldwide war ends, the four-month civil war
concludes in communist capitulation, the local guerrillas lie low.
For Eleni, there is word from Christos and money for a dowry for
Olga, the oldest. Then the guerrillas are back (because of an
internal Communist split), more fanatical than ever. But Christos
has written Eleni to stay where she is ("After all, who are these
andartes? They're fellow Greeks. . . fighting for their rights").
Now, as the Communists move to conscript the two oldest girls, she
wonders "if she shouldn't have defied him and the edicts of village
propriety which had always ruled her life." To exempt soft Olga,
Eleni mutilates her foot. (Kanta, tiny but tougher, goes.) Village
gossip turns calculating, vindictive. (Eleni has always been
envied.) Finally the guerrillas, facing defeat, start sending the
young children to be raised in Communist countries - and Eleni
arranges the escape of Nikola and his sisters that will lead to her
execution. The aftermath, with Gage tracking down the culprits (and
twice not-shooting the foremost), is pulp melodramatics - except
for the moment, in a refugee village in Hungary, he faces "what my
fate would have been if my mother hadn't saved us. . . ." Eleni's
story, as well, is too heavily orchestrated to be fully persuasive.
But this cinematic mix of politics, ethnicity, suspense, and
schmaltz does, undeniably, have a grab. (Kirkus Reviews)
In 1948, in a Greek mountain village, Eleni Gatzoyiannis was arrested, tortured and shot. Her crime had been to help her children to escape from the Communist guerrillas during the Greek civil war who were abducting children and sending them to camps behind the Iron Curtain. Her son, Nicholas Gage, was then eight years old. Eventually he reached America and joined his father who was working there and sending money back to his family. In America Gage grew up to become one of The New York Times’ best investigative reporters. He returned to Greece in 1977 as a Times correspondent and, gradually but increasingly obsessively, he began to reconstruct his mother’s life and death. By the time he was finished he was ready to confront both his mother’s executioners and his own memories. Eleni, an intensely moving and compelling book, is the fruit of his search for the truth.
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