Beheaded by a jihadi Beatle – a mother’s true story

When Jim Foley was brutally murdered in 2014 by one of the British terrorists known as the ‘jihadi Beatles’, his grieving mother struggled to put into words the tragedy she endured. A new devastating memoir, a collaboration between Diane Foley and novelist Colum McCann, captures some of the pain, says Robert McCrum

Foley speaks at a rally hosted by Bring Back our Families in Lafayette Park, Washington, DC, in 2023 (Getty)

Hope and history never rhyme, and literature is humanity’s riposte to the tragedy of events. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad’s controversial but still classic response to an apocalypse in the Belgian Congo, “The horror! The horror!”, becomes a strange, unearthly kind of consolation for the terrible deeds done in the name of the civilising mission in Africa.

Colum McCann is an acclaimed novelist (Let the Great World Spin, TransAtlantic, Apeirogon) who has chosen to approach our own century’s heart of darkness in the Middle East through memoir, not fiction. 

American Mother is the fruit of his collaboration with Diane Foley, whose search for meaning 10 years after her son’s horrifying execution in August 2014 becomes a testament to the power of empathy and moral courage.