Ellen's Other Books

NONA: A Different Kind of Motherhood

Even though Ellen Boneparth had made no place in her life for children, she became in her fifties a different kind of mother – a NONA, a godmother to a Greek young woman. For five years, she willingly shared herself and her life with Katerina.

Together they learned about American college life in Santa Rosa, California. They traveled to Hawaii, Sydney and Greece. They learned about relationships, living in foreign cultures, and, most of all, they learned about themselves and each other. They discovered that for a parent and child, growing up means growing apart.

This story is also about Greek and American families, friends, and teachers who helped Katerina build a home away from home. It’s about living on Greek islands, traveling in Europe and Asia, and launching a career after college. It’s about risk-taking, comfort-giving, openness and privacy. Most of all, it’s about mothers and daughters finding their way to an honest and loving relationship.

PBS Journalist Gail Harris said, “NONA vividly demonstrates that sometimes the best families aren’t the ones we’re born into but the ones we create for ourselves.”

NONA is a tale for all women who have daughters, who are thinking about having children, or who chose not to have children and wonder about their choice.

Readers who enjoy foreign cultures will love reading tales of settling and rebuilding a house in a Greek island village.

Ellen Boneparth wrote this memoir at home in Santa Rosa, California and in her adopted home of Lesbos, Greece. Her two published novels, DAYS OF ATONEMENT and DEATH AT THE OLIVE PRESS, are also set in Greece where from time to time she has lived and worked for over 25 years.

DAYS OF ATONEMENT

"Ellen Boneparth takes us on a journey through maze of relationships. The energy of her prose draws us in, and we delight as she unearths long suppressed truths about WWII and the Jews of Greece."—Diane Bell, author of Daughters of the Dreaming and Evil: A Novel

"Ellen Boneparth’s story of the Jews of Greece is a gift to be grateful for. Beka’s spiritual quest will appeal to readers searching for meaning in a multivalent world."—Carol P. Christ, author of She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess

DAYS OF ATONEMENT tells the story of a contemporary Jewish woman’s search for her roots against the historical backdrop of the Greek Holocaust.

While searching for her family’s roots, Beka Freeman unearths never-revealed stories of struggles for human survival during the terrors of the Nazi occupation of Greece. On her journey, Beka, an American sociologist, single mother, and daughter of a feisty widowed mother, not only discovers the secrets of members of the Solomonides family stretching from Athens to Israel to Hollywood, but also finds love with a Greek man who compels her to re-define herself.

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