AMERICAN MOTHER, by Colum McCann with Diane Foley
Bloomsbury, $38.99
The American mother of this memoir is Diane Foley, mother of American journalist James (Jim) Foley, who was kidnapped in northern Syria and murdered by ISIS in a public beheading that would ricochet in a video around the world. The book is written by Irish author Colum McCann who captures Diane Foley’s voice in a very authentic way.
What motivated my interest in this book was that I wanted to know how a mother copes when one of her children is held in captivity in a brutal place for over two years. I wanted to know how she coped with his death that was so public and violent. And how did she get through the days and years in the ten years since his murder.
This book is much bigger than a mother’s story of worry and grief. We learn about Jim’s moral courage that drove him to become a war journalist and tell the truth about its terrors. We learn about the hypocrisy of governments and the policy that makes it illegal to pay ransoms to terror organisations. We learn about the James Foley Foundation, a lobby group to change policies dealing with American citizens held in illegal captivity. And we learn about the importance of protecting journalists so that they can tell the world what is happening in warzones.
The first and confronting chapter describes Diane Foley’s meeting with Alexanda Kotey, one of her son’s murderers. She doesn’t know what she is hoping to achieve from this meeting. Her husband and other families refuse to meet this man. The meeting does not give her closure. Life is messy. This is not fiction. But she did it because it was what Jim would have done.
And that is why she wrote this book; it is what Jim would have done. It gives her solace that her son will never be forgotten, and I am personally glad that I’ve read this story. The book is dedicated to the other three hostages who were killed with Jim, ‘and to mothers everywhere.’
Wilma
