Beatles, an American Mother, legendary author colum mccann, tells diane story as she recalls months of his captivity. The made to bring him home and the days following his death in which diane came face to face. One of the men responsible for sons kidnaping and torture a testament to power of radical empathy and moral courage. American mother takes us one womans extraordinary journey to find connection in a world torn asunder and to fight for others as a way to keep sons memory alive. Author Patrick Radden keefe calls the book an extraordinary story of grace, forgiveness and moral courage. Colum mccann is the author of seven novels, three collections of stories, and two works of nonfiction. Born and raised in dublin, she has been the recipient of many honors, including the u. S. National book award. His 2020 novel, a paragon one several international awards. He is the president and cofounder of the nonprofit Story Exchange organization a narrative for and is the Thomas Hunter writer in residence at hunter college. He lives in new york with his wife and family. Diane foley founded the james w Legacy Foundation to advocate for freedom for innocent americans held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad, and for journalists safety. Foley has raised awareness about hostage taking through her government. The documentary the James Foley Story and Opinion Pieces in new york times, the Washington Post and usa today as well as appearances on the pbs newshour. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband dr. John w foley and is mother of four other children. And the grandmother of seven. Mccann and foley will be in conversation with margaret collins, the Washington Bureau chief and executive editor of. U. S. Economy and government covered for bloomberg news. Previously, she oversaw the u. S. Economy team through the pandemic and was team leader of invest in coverage in the u. S. Prior to those roles. Collins was a reporter covering. Topics such as retirement savings, policy, Wealth Management and family offices. Shes been with the Company Since 2009, before bloomberg. Collins was multimedia editor for msn and reporter for the Bergen County record newspaper in new jersey. Collins holds a masters degree in journalism from Northwest University and a bachelors degree from the college of the holy cross. Please welcome our authors and moderator. Thank. Well, thank you all for being here tonight. Its my honor to moderate this conversation about this stunning new i learned when i got from the publisher that the book actually launched in january in france. If i got that right diane and is already a bestseller there in ireland where column is from which is a very exciting its and its just come out in the u. S. In march but diane not everyone was convinced that this was worth writing. So can you talk a little about the start of that and how the two of you first came together . Sure. Colm and i was strangers at an odd column, first heard of jims story after. Jim was murdered because someone sent him a picture of our reading the great world. And so that piqued and columns oh that piqued columns curiosity and so but i never he he generously reached out to us but i never received the so it was really just three years ago on a zoom regarding one of his other novels a paragon at marquette university. Yes. And i was to that and thats how i met colin. And then he came to visit and we became good friends and and he very generously offered to help write it. So the extraordinary thing is that um yeah i felt a kinship with jim now i feel that he sits on my shoulder as we travel around and talk this book but um, you know, when i went and talked with dan and and john up in their house in hampshire and dan said to me, well, were going to go, i, to go, uh, meet my sons killer. And because of the plea agreement, uh, that had been negotiated. Well talk a little bit more about this because we have a very important person in the, the audience here tonight. Uh, one of the, one of the archetype of one of the great acts of justice, uh, that we feel, uh, occurred, uh, mr. Oak and dennis fitzpatrick, um, we, uh, decided to go down, uh, virginia, uh together to meet, uh, alexander cody and um, that moment i will just paint for you. Just very briefly in broad brush we walked into a quite large, uh, room in the middle of a courthouse, a windowless room in the middle of a virginia courthouse. Um, and dan walked, walked up to the table, sat not four feet from him. And the first words that came out of her mouth were, it is nice meet you, alexander and she had thought about like, how was she going to address all of these things and you imagine what that must have felt like in that particular moment there were lots of other people in the room. There were prosecutors, there were defense. There were like, uh, courtyard court guards, there were, uh, fbi agents and dissolve of the way. And until you see this man and this woman talking then about faith, about conviction, about violence, about loss, about a whole plethora of human emotions, um, for the next two days and then eight months after that, sorry, eight months after that, um, we saw him once again and for me, um, as a writer, as a journalist, as a person who wants to live in the world, it was one of the most extraordinary Human Experiences that ive ever come across. I, i, i will embarrass here because i will say i met a person of extraordinary courage. Um and that was one of the reasons that led me to, to, to want to, uh, this book and articulate what went on because within those walls, then beyond those walls, uh, was one of the stories that i feel almost mythic to our times. And im deeply grateful to diane for, uh, for allowing me the space to get in there and to try to excavate some of the complications of this story. Its a lot is about a lot of things that you. Diane, could you talk a little bit more theres column saying the book for those of you who havent read it yet, opens up. Essentially with the first chapter in that courtroom. And on that day that you first met, the man who a role in your sons murder. So what it like for you. I was nervous. I was grateful that colin was willing to come and grateful to the department of justice and attorney fitzpatrick for allowing it, allowing to be a family friend, for he was at that point. But i had to pray lot about it because wanted to be able to see alexander as the flawed human being that we all are, you know and same age is one of my sons. So i just wanted to make sure i treated him with the respect and the person should be treated with, if you will because jim challenged thats the way jim was jim would have seen him would have wanted to talk him would have wanted to hear him out. But i also, as a mom wanted him to hear me out and hear who jim was. So i was nervous about it. But thanks to colin, friendship and being there with me and lots of good people, it was it was a good thing. I was very grateful. I want. So just to give you a little bit of a sense of the pace of the writing, the spirit of the writing and some of the themes that you just talked about. Youll allow me. I just wanted to read a short from early on in the book. I am going to put my glasses on. Actually otherwise i wont actually be able to accomplish that. So you together she so desperately wants him to know what he took away from world, what he stole. Not to not just the journalist and activist james rightfully her son. Her oldest boy but everything jim represent it down through the years it is one of the reasons she has come here to tell the truth with no sentimentality, no schmaltz, just the plain, straightforward truth. Jim was a teacher you said to him, leaning forward her bracelets rattling. He worked with juvenile delinquents mothers too. As a journalist bore witness jims search for the ground truth. He was fair he was curious. He was even tempered he was interested in equanimity. Jim aspired to have courage. He was a man for others. When he became a journalist, gave his life trying to expose the world to, the suffering of the syrian people. He was compelled to bear witness. He was a thoughtful son to the older brother of five, a friend he was widely loved. Jim saw the good in everyone he believed in the complicated truth. He would have written coyote story. What is more, he would have gotten it entirely correct. I thought that was pretty stunning because can really see in those words there how its poetic but also really tries to draw out who jim was as a person well call him how did you accomplish in terms of really taking the readers diane into the soul her son thats nicely said. I mean thats what i wanted to do. I will tell this that jim would never have wanted write about himself. Um, but he was always interested in the stories of others. Um, and for me that was a key access and a way to get there. Um, but as a writer, you have to find a form. Uh, and in fact, Samuel Beckett said back in the 1980s, it is the job the artist now to find a form that accommodates the mess. So when i walked into that room in the courthouse in virginia, i could see a structure unfold in front of me that, uh, we could tell the story about diane meeting her sons killer. And then within of that, then we would be able to tell, uh to to reflect on the whole story, looking backwards. So its actually told in third person at the beginning in first person for the rest of for most of the rest of the book. And then back in third person again, theres a sort of a trinity. Theres a symmetry that was going on and there was a lot of that that that that that we had to negotiate, um, you know, i had to, to, to, to understand and go a deep dive with them, you know, understanding dianes faith, uh, she had to tolerate me and my, my poetic, actually, you should talk about that like there were times that, okay column this is not a novel. That was part of the fun though column. Those of you whove read this work know what a poet he is and how he is at helping readers feel. Whats on and really be there but but at time was he wanted to embellish. I had to keep. But that was part of the fun i had to keep. Oh you kind of thing but what an honor to have a column interested this story and helping me to tell because i really felt it was needed to be told and heres the deal right. Um, you know, this is an important story for journalism, for justice, uh, for, uh, you know, things that are going on in the world, but also at the, were in the middle of International Womens month and we just had International Womens day. And this was an extraordinary again, youre going to have to like close ears because im going to embarrass you again. Shes humble, but this a person who took a supposedly ordinary person who who took risks and, um after her son was killed, decided to turn that grief into something powerful. It became action. So without action is actually for the ruin of the soul, for her. What what she did was she decided she would change the whole landscape of how we think, uh, about the hostages taking wrongfully detained. She knocked on peoples doors. She walked through washington, dc. Uh, you know, in the rain, waited people out, got to know peoples names. Did all this stuff. Uh, but it took a lot of courage. And at that stage, you know, um, you know, diane, again, close your ears, um. She was in her sixties when all of this happened. And this is ten years ago. And the power thats it speaks to me about the possibility of change within the supposedly impossible, uh, that, that were confronted almost every day the. Other thing i do want to say, especially here tonight, is that diane saw the best of justice because. These guys were brought back from from from from syria, stripped of their british citizenship. She ensured that the along with others that there would be no death. But also they werent shipped to guantanamo and they werent after abu ghraib. They were put trial, you know, right here. And this was an extraordinary moment in american history. And it will be talked about as such in the years to come. Right. Didnt you feel that when i mean, when was taken in 2012 and 2014, there was no one who wanted to help us. It was like we got the z team, you know. But the opposite happened. In 2022 when the Department Justice did a brilliant job, a very difficult job of bringing al sheffields sheik to justice and negotiated the plea for. Alexander right. So it the opposite and a very moment for our country i feel, you know, a really because accountability is essential, you know, when people take people, we must hold people accountable. So im very, very grateful for that. So you mentioned just now some of the universal themes that run through this book, its a story about jim its a story about mothers its a story about journalist its its a story about justice. Its also a story about families of hostages. And diane, youve done a lot of work. And you write about it in the book as well to try to help families that go through Something Like this that you went through. Do you think theres actually been progress on that front in terms how the u. S. Helps family families, hostages abroad . Absolutely. We have charlotte here from the envoy of hostage affairs. Thats so sweet of you to come, charlotte. One of the very dedicated people who work at the state department. Theres a whole now thats specially developed for families of americans who are wrongfully or detained abroad. And charlotte charlottes one of that team. But so weve thanks to their work and the work of the hostage fusion cell in the white house more than 100 innocent u. S. Nationals come home since jim was murdered. So to me, thats meraki bliss in many ways. However, that threat continues that challenge continues. We have to figure out how stop the horrible practice taking people and using as political pawns and the reality is it is hard to negotiate countries like russia, china you know iran and with terrorists like hamas. So the complexity continues and it really takes the very best of our government to a lot of those things. So therefore, the work of the Foley Foundation continues. Our government and other wonderful ngo is because but deaf improvement. I mean now we have an entity cares and who is accountable to actually talk to families much as they need to be talked to which is not at all the case. When jim was taken, call him. Did you want to comment that part of the book, how you tried to draw that out . Well, i think what important to talk about in a wider sense, um, is that were living in increasingly strangely narrow times, uh, where people seem to be sort of dazed with certainty and you come into the room if you look like me and you come into the room if you vote like me, or you sound like me. Um, but you stay out, um and, um, a lot of how we are thinking, um, seems to be, uh, you know, directed in very singular ways. And so we have these, these very narrow instinct, um, and one of the things about this particular topic is that the narrowness, uh, you know, a few years ago weve begun to think, in, in broader, more intel ways. And so dan used the word complexity. I like the of messiness, you know, um and i, in fact, i want to write an essay, uh, um, my wife knows this very well in praise of messiness yeah, no, but i, but i also mean intellectual messiness that the, the ability for us to Something Like i dont know when you get asked a question to be brave enough to say dont know also as artists and writers and thinkers and people are involved in political situation and the the ability to to say um well thats complex lets try and and figure it figure it out. I think we will become, uh, better people when and that complexity, uh, gets, get, gets looked at and we are to say, like diane said when she went in and sat with alexander cody, um, you know, we dont need to necessarily love each other, we actually dont even need to like each other. We hope that we eventually all could, but we must understand one another because if we dont understand one another, were doomed. And so these lanes of narrowness that that that you in an increasingly you know big world where we shouldnt be narrow are ones that um as artists as teachers as journalists, as uh, for people involved in politics we have try to protect this where the essence of the sort of democratic instinct comes from me. So for me, you know, looking at this, at book, you know, um, and looking at this, uh, at this, this woman and her career, it was really important for me to, to, to, to be able to, to communicate the pulse of the moment, but also the little bit of confusion. Its little bit confusing when you go in to see cody. We like to almost we understood him almost. Its a little bit confusing when he starts about islam and christianity. He seems to be, you know, a, um, a person of, of, of some integrity in relation to, certainly in relation to his religion and so on. And were trying to deal with all of these things eventually, but it all comes down. Is one person being brave enough to have the courage to actually try and go the divide and its a big divide to go across the divide and say, i will look at you, youre human. And, uh we need to know each other and we become better when we know each other. Doesnt mean that we have to kowtow to each other. It doesnt mean that we have to to to to to make it easy. But, um, i think thats part of what i understood essentially as she was going through this whole journey. When you were talking column, it reminded me diane, of the scenes in the book when hes actually talking to you about. His own children, i think, even showed you picture of them and you come to it at the end of the book and you titled the book American Mother. So what what are of the things or anything that you hope mother is take away from this book given your road as a mother has so hard. Well, i think mothers parents know how tough it is to parent. Right. And. I just think any person has the option to always choose to do that tougher thing the it jim has challenged me to try to find some good something could help others out of a horrible situation jim would have and he really challenged me to do the same and and think in our world today were all challenged. Right. You know, were challenged to try to understand the person that disagrees with us or or the teenager that wont listen. You know were all challenged in different ways. And i, i guess this book is partly. Important to me because. I just want everyone to realize that can make a difference in their way because we all have gifts. We all have opportunities every day to do the hard thing,