This book may contain language, sexual content, and themes of grief and loss, which may be challenging for some readers. Reader caution advised.
Having the Last Word
by Marjory Hall
Hi from Goodwell, in the Oklahoma panhandle! I’m Marjory Hall with a BookByte for our 2025 Fall Read. It’s not uncommon for people to recall wonderful first lines of novels. There’s Snoopy’s favorite: “It was a dark and stormy night;” of course, there’s “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”; and another of my favorites: “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” For American Mother, by Colum McCann and Diane Foley, my greatest affection belongs to the closing lines: “Everything good, once begun, lasts. Nothing ever truly ends.”
One of my favorite elements of American Mother is its insistence that no evil can ever extinguish good. The good of Jim Foley’s life on earth was ended in an unspeakable execution, but his spirit will never leave the people who knew and loved him. Now, by his mother’s courage and efforts, those who read about James in her book can also experience his kindness and optimism. Throughout her family’s ordeal, Diane Foley relied for strength upon the mercy and grace of God, leaning on the hope she found in her faith. The motivation that prompted a mother to commune with her child’s killer could only be Foley’s determination to obey Jesus’ exhortation to love one another as He loved us.
In talking about this book, many people have disagreed with me that there is any evidence of love in Foley’s encounters with Alexanda Kotey; there certainly is none in Kotey’s encounter with Jim Foley. People have told me that they read Diane Foley’s interest in meeting Kotey as springing from her wish to be close to the last person to know her living son. I must disagree.
Diane Foley knew long before she met Kotey that he was an accomplished liar. I don’t think she ever had much hope of finding remorse in him. Foley’s meeting with Kotey is the result of her conviction that we are all God’s creatures, capable of imitating God’s example of transcendent love. One of the most striking moments of Foley’s determination to recognize Kotey’s humanity is her internal debate over what to call him. She chooses carefully because “[e]veryone deserves a name, even those who want to take away the names of others” (14).
At one point in her conversation with Kotey, Foley thinks she detects “a terrified man lying underneath” the man’s bravado (24). I don’t know if the symbolism was deliberate, but the only sound Foley reports after this glimpse of Kotey as a wounded young man is the metallic scraping of his shackles. In Foley’s belief system, Kotey could release himself, not from the physical chains of his imprisonment, but from the spiritual chains of his inhumane choices. By the end of the book, however, Diane Foley’s comfort comes in the experience of having met a fellow creature in a spirit of community, not from any action of Kotey’s. No matter the deliberate steps Kotey has taken away from the community of mankind, she knows that he is still a member of that community, with a hope of forgiveness. Even after acknowledging that his injustice toward his captives was a violation of his Muslim faith, though, Kotey stands by his belief that Allah will forgive him.
What can we make of this situation? Two people who are guided by their religious faith stand in direct opposition about the same event. At one point, Foley reflects on the irony of their “exact same amount of certainty” (230). The final word goes to Foley. Despite her losses, her behavior toward Jim’s murderer is compassionate. Wishing him peace and exchanging a moment’s contact in a handshake, Foley departs their final meeting, A gesture of fellowship has been offered and accepted. It is a good thing begun.
I’m Marjory Hall from Goodwell, Oklahoma, with a Book Byte for Fall, 2025.
Work Cited
McCann, Colum and Diane Foley. American Mother. Etruscan, 2023.
