Martyr!
A novel
-
-
4.3 • 436 Ratings
-
-
- $1.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR • A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction.
“Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.” —Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of There There
“The best novel you'll ever read about the joy of language, addiction, displacement, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness.” —Lauren Groff, best-selling author of Matrix and Fates and Furies
Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.
Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In Iranian American poet Kaveh Akbar’s deeply moving debut novel, a young man sifts through his family’s painful legacy. Feeling crushed by the senseless deaths of his mother and father, poet Cyrus Shams decides that his life’s work will be a cycle of poems about martyrdom and the various forms it can take. When Cyrus enlists the help of Iranian performance artist Orkideh, who is in the midst of an ongoing project inspired by her own impending death, Cyrus discovers many unexpected and deeply relevant truths about what it really means to make your life count. Akbar plays with words and images in a free, joyous, and childlike way that can make a Brooklyn park bench feel like a limitless universe, and his overarching themes of humanity, faith, love, and perseverance feel hugely relevant. Deeply moving and wonderfully chaotic (one chapter is an extended philosophical conversation with...Lisa Simpson), Martyr! finds beauty and grace in the simple act of being alive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet Akbar (Calling a Wolf a Wolf) explores the allure of martyrdom in this electrifying story of a Midwestern poet struggling with addiction and grief. Cyrus Shams, an orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, is fixated on finding meaning in the deaths of his parents—his mother in a plane that was accidentally shot down by the U.S. Navy over the Persian Gulf, his father from a stroke. His obsession strains his relationships, particularly with his closest friend and roommate Zee Novak, as does his heavy drinking and drug use. Immersed in the study of martyrs throughout history, Cyrus finds focus for his project when he meets Orkideh, an older painter foregoing treatment for her terminal breast cancer, and he realizes he has an opportunity to interview a living martyr. More details would spoil the plot, which thickens when connections are revealed between Cyrus and Orkideh as well as secrets about Cyrus's family history that inform his conflicted feelings about pursuing a queer romance with Zee. Akbar deploys a range of styles with equal flair, from funny wordplay ("Maybe it was that Cyrus had done the right drugs in the wrong order, or the wrong drugs in the right order") to incisive lyricism ("An alphabet, like a life, is a finite set of shapes"). This wondrous novel will linger in readers' minds long after the final page.
Customer Reviews
Life and death
Highly creative exploration of the meaning of life and death
Amazing
This book was brilliant!
The Paradox of Dying
Kaveh Akbar’s “Martyr” is a mess of a novel. Perhaps, intentionally so. The disjointed flow, rambling dialogue, and messy experiences may be Akbar’s technique to engross the reader in the complexity of the lives of the principal characters. At moments it made sense and at others I wanted to walk away from it.
To be fair, the story itself is a unique analysis on what makes life worth living when everything around you is some flavor of personal tragedy. The interwoven stories show us that the continuity of a legacy is in itself a worthwhile reason for being. Akbar also demonstrates that even in dying we give meaning to life; if only for others.
That said, the plot twist near the end of the book lands as almost cruel. Long suffering souls being unnecessarily ground down by a newly revealed truth. Akbar’s creativity is wasted with such a forced plot device. I am not looking for happy endings but this one was heavy. Yet, there is also beauty in the end. Which is why I am so torn on this book. A worthwhile read that spotlights Persian experiences that are not often heard.