Eleni

Eleni, Nicholas Gage

(original book review posted August 3, 2016)

Eleni Gatzoyiannis was executed by Greek "freedom fighters" - her own countrymen - when she helped her children escape from their little mountain town and go to their father in the U.S. - rather than have them taken from her and sent to live in communist countries.

This biography of her life is written by her only son, Nicholas, who became an investigative journalist. It is a powerful testament of the power of motherhood as a force for good.

There are three things that made this book important to me - first - it helped me connect dots to the political landscape in my own world. As the communists advanced their agenda in Greece, the propaganda techniques they used were blatant enough to start forming a repetitive pattern I could recognize. I found myself thinking, "We hear garbage like that!" It changed the way I accepted news sources, and got me searching for voices I could trust. I attribute 4 biographies as waking me up to the conditions in the world; this is one of them.

Secondly, as a wannabe writer, I loved the brilliant writing of this memoir about a memory of a mother, more than an actual mother. Nicholas Gage was 9 when he escaped Greece, so much of the book is written as dispassionately as any unknown biographer would about a researched, but personally unknown, subject. But then, suddenly, Gage was 9 years old for a moment, and the few cherished memories of a living, breathing mother who poured her life into her children, would tumble out. Because these moments were random and scarce, they took my breath away. They kept this tribute from a son from becoming overly sappy or sentimental.

The thing that made this book most meaningful for me was the profound statement it makes on the importance of motherhood, in two great acts. As Eleni was being executed, after being vindictively and brutally tortured by a small tyrant (is there any other kind?) - before the firing squad fired, she flung her arms high in the air and shouted, "MY CHILDREN!" It was an incredible punctuation mark of a life lived - and given - completely for her children. Years later, as an adult, the son who did all this research to find that small tyrant responsible for his mother's death, drew upon that great example of his mother to keep him from taking the man's life in vengeance.

It has mattered that I've read this book. I only gave up a career for my children, but it reminded me most powerfully why I did, that it mattered that I did, and that it will matter.

In September 2020 I was fortunate to join my friend Dana Robb on Big Ocean Women's podcast and discuss this seminal book.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2FhxZ2jq85nEKttHCrxRVG