A Place for Us: Eleni's Family in America

Gage was nine in 1949 when he and three sisters set sail from Greece for the U.S. Their mother had just been murdered by Greek communists who tried forcibly to conscript the family into guerrilla training. In Worcester, Mass., the children met their immigrant father Christos Gatzoyiannis, separated for years from the clan. Expecting a tycoon, they found instead an out-of-work short-order cook, a proud, touchy, gruff autocrat whom Gage, resentfully, blamed for not getting the family out of Greece sooner. A fourth sister joined them three months later. The story of Gage's reconciliation with his father is the keynote of this wonderfully vivid autobiographical sequel to Eleni. Full of humorous, ironic, sad touches, this extraordinary, moving saga reflects one family's attempt to balance assimilation with the preservation of Old-World traditions. Halfway to becoming a petty teenaged hood, the author pulled himself together and became instead a distinguished journalist who returned to Greece in an effort to trace his mother's killers (as told in Eleni ). Photos. (Oct.)