American Girls

August 1, 2023

Raised in a Jehovah's Witness community, Lori and older sister Sam remained close after marrying brothers. But while Lori left her abusive marriage, Sam was controlled by a husband who eventually turned jihadist and took the family to Syria, where he fought for Daesh. Digital director of Elle, Roy details Sam's sometimes horrific experiences and Lori's efforts to rescue her, finally relating the subjugation that women like the sisters experienced in the United States to the extremist patriarchal ideologies like the one preached by Daesh. Prepub Alert.

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October 30, 2023
Journalist Roy’s nuanced debut turns a psychological lens on convicted Islamic State supporter Samantha Sally and her sister, Lori. The trauma of the sisters’ upbringing in a stifling and abusive community of Jehovah’s Witnesses (they both suffered rape and had children at young ages) had a lasting impact, according to Roy: Samantha became a reckless thrill-seeker; Lori, a painful introvert. In their 20s, they wed the Moroccan American Elhassani brothers, who grew radicalized and increasingly abusive in the first years of their marriages. While Lori soon got divorced, Samantha made international news in 2015 by following her fanatical husband into ISIS territory in Syria with their children. She eventually escaped ISIS with the children and was extradited to the U.S., where she is serving a six-and-half-year sentence on terrorism-related charges for transporting gold and cash to aid ISIS. Drawing on interviews with both Sally sisters, members of the Elhassani family, and three young Yezidis who were enslaved by Samantha and her husband in Syria, Roy carefully seeks to explain, not excuse, Samantha’s actions: “The Sally sisters had been reared never to interrogate the world around them.... They weren’t given the tools for introspection, or the ability to scrutinize motive or choices.” This is a thoughtful reframing of a sensational case.

November 1, 2023
Of the estimated 300 Americans who have joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), journalist Roy's first book focuses on one, Samantha (Sam) Sally, and the havoc her choices wreaked on her family. Raised in a strict Jehovah's Witness home in Arkansas, Sam and her sister, Lori, were subjected to childhood physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and undereducation, leaving them susceptible to predatory men like Yassine and Moussa, brothers who became radicalized and increasingly unstable as the growth of the internet and social media disseminated jihadist rhetoric exponentially. Lori escaped this perfect storm and her marriage with Yassine, but Sam and her children accompanied Moussa to Syria, enduring a harrowing existence in the ISIS capital, Raqqa, where they lived under the restrictions of sharia law and even purchased several Yezidi children. Roy's diligent research chronicles the rise of ISIS, Lori's efforts to retrieve Sam from Syria, and Sam's enigmatic narrative, portraying Sam as both victim and perpetrator of transgression--to what degree, Roy leaves to the reader. Timely and chilling.

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January 1, 2024
The story of Samantha Sally, whose family was torn apart when her extremist husband joined the Islamic State group, and her sister, Lori, who was instrumental in getting her back to the U.S. from Syria. In a book based on more than three years of interviews, Roy, the former digital director at Elle, digs into an intriguing question: "How did a young mother from Arkansas...end up living in Syria under a murderous militant group?" In 2015, on the border of Turkey and Syria, Samantha watched her husband, Moussa, running away--with their toddler, their savings, and Samantha's passport--toward the then-headquarters of IS. Desperate, she followed them and ended up imprisoned there by Moussa. The author delineates not only the beginning of their relationship (the couple met in Indiana, introduced by Lori, who was married to Moussa's brother), but the sisters' earlier trauma. As children, both had been "sexually abused by a family member," and they did not report it out of fear that their family would be divided. Roy argues that the experience manifested itself in "lack of trust, feelings of guilt and shame, revictimization." Later, Sam was beaten and raped as part of a boyfriend's gang initiation; Lori could hear it through the wall. "Even when they were kids," the author writes, "Lori had always tried her best to shield Sam...but Sam never wanted protection." In addition to reporting on the sisters' interactions, Roy explores related issues of culpability and criminality: "Was it possible that Sam had chosen to stay--not because of her commitment to the cause, necessarily, but because she was too afraid to be sent to jail when she got home? Other Americans who had so much as tried to join IS had been charged and jailed." The details are shocking, but Roy provides a chilling reminder that this could happen to anyone.

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