American Mother

by Colum McCann, Diane Foley

Overview

"One of the best books I've read in many, many years, if not in my life."—Anderson Cooper  

Featured on MSNBC's Morning Joe  

What does a mother say to the person responsible for kidnapping, torturing, and murdering her son? National Book Award-winning author Colum McCann channels Diane Foley’s voice as she tells her story, as the mother of American journalist Jim Foley – in search of answers, beyond justice, found through dogged, empathetic, spiritual enquiry.  

In late 2021, Diane Foley sat at a table across from her son's killer, Alexanda Kotey, a member of the ISIS group known as "The Beatles" who plead guilty to the kidnapping, torture, and murder of her son seven years before. Kotey was about to go serve life imprisonment and this was Diane’s chance to talk to the man who had been involved with brutally taking her son's last breath. What would she say to his killer? What would he reveal to her? Might she even be able to summon forgiveness for him?  

So begins American Mother— which reads alternately like a thriller, a biography, a mystery, a memoir, and a literary examination of grace.  

Diane looks back on the early days when Jim was a child and his journey to journalism, and the killing fields of the world where he reports with indefatigable determination and insight on the plight of those caught up in the agonies of war. She guides us through her family history and the difficulties they faced when Jim was captured. And she also charts the tenacity it takes to turn her grief into grace as she seeks to give voice to those who are still being kidnapped and wrongfully detained around the world.  

Few journeys are more worthy than this and, in this astonishing book, we are all invited to celebrate the lives of those who are never, in the end, gone. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798985882452
Publisher:	Etruscan Press
Publication date:	03/05/2024
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Colum McCann has seven novels and three collections of short stories have been published in over forty languages and received some of the world’s most prestigious literary awards and honors, including the National Book Award for his novel Let the Great World Spin in 2013. His novel TransAtlantic was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013, and his most recent novel, Apeirogon, also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, is an international best-seller on four continents.

Diane M. Foley co-founded the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation in the weeks after her son, a freelance journalist, was beheaded by members of ISIS in the Syrian Desert in 2014. Inspired by the life, work, and moral courage of her son, Diane has worked with Congress and every presidential administration since, catalyzing action, research, and policy to win freedom for all US Nationals wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad.

Read an Excerpt

In the room, the clocks tick, unseen. 

It has been a day of shadows and redirection, revelation and lies. Diane gets the vague sense that Kotey — with his confidence and his silence — might think himself to be the smartest person in the room. He is intelligent yes, but it’s an intelligence that needs to wear a disguise. And besides, the smartest person in the room is the one who knows she, or he, is never the smartest at all: herein lies the contradiction. She wonders now if he has just said exactly the things she wanted to hear? She knows herself to be naïve at times: she admits this to herself. Yes, it is true, she has often been far too open to people in the past. She has been stung. Government officials who have deceived her. Pretenders from the FBI. Misdirection from the State Department and White House. Politicians. Negotiators. Informers. Conmen. And, perhaps now, Kotey. But she also knows that the naivety is necessary to cultivate something deeper. She wants to remain open to the world. Compassion, Lord. And mercy. And patience. There will be one more session tomorrow. Perhaps they will achieve something more than this intimate stand-off . But then again, perhaps nothing. She pulls back her chair and thanks him. It is dangerous, she knows, to thank him, her son’s murderer. But she must do it anyway. Perhaps it’s only politeness. Perhaps it’s something more. 

In another life,” she says, “you and Jim might have been friends.”

Editorial Reviews

One of the best books I've read in many, many years, if not in my life.“—Anderson Cooper

“A spectacular tale of violence and forgiveness.”— Salman Rushdie

“Foley’s urge to understand the psychology of one of her son’s captors made her a perfect match for McCann, who has described the value of ‘radical empathy’ to his moral compass.”—New York Times

"This is an extraordinary story of grace, forgiveness and moral courage. Bookended by Diane Foley’s meetings with her son’s killer, American Mother plunges us into the heart of darkness and then, somehow, on the far end, discovers unexpected light and hope. Diane Foley’s voice, as captured by Colum McCann, is one of the most compelling in recent literary memory. An honest, searing, heartbreaking book."—Patrick Radden Keefe

"It’s kind of unique in my experience. . . . It’s a novelist writing about an actual event with a depth and thoroughness that you never get from the news.”—Michael Cunningham, via New York Times

"American Mother is a book that will shake your soul out. A thriller, a memoir, a mystery, a portrait of forgiveness, and a literary song of grace, Colum McCann and Diane Foley have filled the empty chair for us all. One of the most extraordinarily well-braided stories that I have read in years."—Sting

“Reading American Mother is nothing but humbling: that we should all be so decent and so wise, so generous of heart.”—The Guardian

★ “It is hard to call such a tragic story a thing of beauty, and yet that is what McCann has created here. Unforgettable.”— Booklist (starred review)

★ “A harrowing memoir of grief and love.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“An innovative, unsettling and utterly compelling narrative.”—Washington Post

“Artfully structured and delivered with propulsive intensity and heart, American Mother takes us deep into what must be every parent’s nightmare.”—Pico Iyer, Air Mail

"Having lived through every mother’s worst nightmare and somehow survived, Diane Foley leads with her heart in her fierce advocacy for Americans captured abroad. Now, in this book, she helps us understand how that is possible by inviting us to walk with her through some of the hardest moments of her life, courageously facing the unthinkable, sharing a candor that takes your breath away, and a deep hope that generations to come will never have to face what she did."— Judy Woodruff

“American Mother hits bookshelves at a time when understanding the experience of those held captive is a matter not only of empathy but also of public policy.”—Christian Science Monitor

"This is a work of great faith and redemption. And here is a woman making the whole world accessible to us all."—Jamie Lee Curtis

From the Publisher

★ 2024-02-17
An indelible portrait of a mother’s courage.

Award-winning novelist McCann and Foley, mother of murdered journalist James Wright Foley (1973-2014), offer a powerful recounting of the unspeakable tragedy and its aftermath. In August 2014, after being held hostage for two years, Jim was beheaded by Islamic Group terrorists. He had been taken hostage once before, in Libya, but that time was released after 44 days. Undaunted, he went to Syria “determined to bear witness to the horrific bombings and gassings of innocent civilians by the Assad regime.” After he was taken hostage, the Foley family, to their deepening dismay, discovered that the U.S. refused unequivocally to negotiate for hostages’ release, and the Foleys were threatened with prosecution if they tried to raise ransom money on their own. Meanwhile, though, through “an incredibly circuitous route,” several European governments managed to free their own hostages. “They insinuated themselves carefully into the communications system,” the authors write, “got under the umbrella of the emails, and forged their own secret methods that included a network of agents and ambassadors and, yes, even spies.” Foley vents her anger toward the many government officials who claimed they were powerless to help. “The plain fact of the matter is that we don’t care as much for our aid workers or our volunteer ambulance drivers or our journalists as we do for our military,” the authors assert. Foley and her family founded the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation to advocate for the freedom of those taken hostage or detained abroad, and she takes hope from recent legislation, most recently by Biden’s executive order, in support of hostages. Hoping for “answers to help her in the wider work against hostage-taking,” Foley met with one of the terrorists involved in her son’s murder—unsettling encounters that bracket the striking narrative.

A harrowing memoir of grief and love.

Kirkus Reviews