Member Reviews
Deirdre S, Reviewer
A beautifully rendered and unique memoir - I loved the collaboration between McCann and Foley, and Foley tells her story in a powerful way.
Stephen D, Educator
'American Mother' is a stunning work of non-fiction which describes Diane Foley's experiences her son, the journalist James Foley, was kidnapped and later murdered by ISIS in Syria. The book describes the pain of loss and the agonising experiences Jim underwent during captivity, but also Diane's determination to make something good come out of his suffering, both through her campaigning to improve America's approach to hostage recovery, and through her efforts to engage with Alexanda Kotey, one of the men who tortured and killed her son.
The book is co-written by the novelist Colum McCann and Diane Foley herself. The outer sections mainly describe Diane's meetings with Kotey in third person, while the much longer central section is written in first person recounts Diane's life as a mother, from Jim's childhood and his early work as a journalist, to his first kidnap in Libya and his second kidnap in Syria, to the aftermath of his death, Diane's grief and her response. As I understand it, these sections have also been penned by McCann but with extensive input from Foley - but they read entirely like they are written in her voice.
In many ways, this book reminded me of McCann's most recent novel 'Apeirogon' which also draws on real lives and focuses on the Parents Circle which brings together bereaved Israeli and Palestinian parents - as well as the journalists Marina Cantacuzino's work on the Forgiveness Project. All of these works offer a welcome and necessary alternative to an increasingly vengeful and polarised world: not an imperative of forgiveness but a possibility of hope, goodness and light in the darkest of circumstances. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.
