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.
Part of the grace of the book is to present us with a thoughtful and impassioned woman who sits outside every stereotype ... Artfully structured and delivered with propulsive intensity and heart, American Mother takes us deep into what must be every parent’s nightmare ... To read the scenes in which mother and killer sit across from one another, delivered in palpitating detail, and to see Foley wonder how she might be able to help the killer’s daughters, is to be reminded that it’s those who are sure they know everything who are most reliably in the wrong. And that some souls are strong enough to step beyond even our most poisonous divisions.
An innovative, unsettling and utterly compelling narrative ... There is no easy answer to the many public conundrums that animate this book, nor to Foley’s private quest to gain insights.
The picture Diane paints of the incompetence and fearful mishandling of the American hostages is horrifying ... The book is compact and well-told, although I wish McCann had been a little less writerly in the jarring opening and final chapters, written in the third person with flourishes I found distracting. The rest of it flows fine and true. Diane Foley’s faith and empathy — she worries about Kotey’s daughters, living in a camp in Syria — is nothing short of miraculous.
