I didn’t know what to expect going in but this had me hooked from the first sentence. This is a compelling, amazingly beautifully written novel about loss, identity, addiction, art, death, and love.

Our main character Cyrus is an Iranian-born man living in Indiana, rather newly sober and searching for the meaning of life. He is loveable but lazy, stuck in a life leading nowhere. He wants to create a literary work of art based on the lives of martyrs and becomes obsessed with this idea, which leads him to a trip to Brooklyn that will change his life forever.

There are so many themes coursing through this novel and that makes it sound very deep, which it is, but it is also very light-hearted at times with a wry wit and humor. The chapters are varied, with different narrative styles from different points of view mixed with poetry. I felt that some of the voices were very similar when they should have been much more distinct. At around 50% I started to feel bogged down with the dream-chapters and poetry. I didn’t think the dream conversations really added much to the plot. There were some elements that needed a suspension of disbelief and the final chapter was bizarre and made me wonder if I’m just not smart enough for this book?

It would be great for a book club or buddy read – very discussable!

Major thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:

Half of who I am, right now, is this whole book. Or all the questions I’ve been asking myself are written a lot better here. Refined. I think what I’m trying to tell you is that all the right questions are asked here. All the important ones.

"𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦—𝘮𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳..”
"𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺𝘳?"

To be honest, I don't know how to matter. Life. Death. The in-between. Before. After. I don't know how. All this matter floats and floats, from place to place, day through day. I'm as lost as Cyrus, our protagonist.

A loser. Wrought with so much trauma. He reminds me of the slacker in [book:The Fuck-Up|25148], but with a bigger heart. In search of finding the drive for his book, he happens upon the live performance of an Iranian artist: one whose performance is her living at the Brooklyn Museum, dying of stage-4 breast cancer.

As the year is ending and as I'm trying to find pretty bows to feelings that haven't been fully felt. I'm realizing so much more patience is required beyond the end of the year. But this is how I measure time. Because there are 24 hours in a day. because I work a 9 to 5. Because my contract is coming to a close. Because because because. It's in the because that I want to sit in, sift out which bow, which color, which length, which way to tie it all together to make it fit, compact, in my scattered brain. I̶ r̶e̶q̶u̶i̶r̶e̶ t̶h̶e̶ g̶i̶f̶t̶s̶ u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ t̶h̶e̶ t̶r̶e̶e̶ b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ I̶ w̶a̶n̶t̶ t̶h̶e̶ b̶e̶l̶l̶s̶ a̶n̶d̶ w̶h̶i̶s̶t̶l̶e̶s̶. S̶o̶ m̶u̶c̶h̶ o̶f̶ m̶y̶ h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ a̶n̶d̶ b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ h̶a̶s̶ b̶e̶e̶n̶ s̶o̶ l̶o̶s̶t̶ w̶i̶t̶h̶o̶u̶t̶ t̶h̶e̶m̶. S̶t̶a̶l̶e̶ t̶u̶n̶e̶s̶, g̶r̶a̶y̶ s̶l̶u̶s̶h̶. T̶V̶ d̶i̶n̶n̶e̶r̶s̶ a̶n̶d̶ l̶o̶n̶e̶l̶y̶ n̶i̶g̶h̶t̶s̶ a̶t̶ d̶i̶n̶e̶r̶s̶ f̶o̶r̶ m̶a̶j̶o̶r̶ h̶o̶l̶i̶d̶a̶y̶s̶. I̶ r̶e̶q̶u̶i̶r̶e̶ t̶h̶e̶ g̶i̶f̶t̶s̶ b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ s̶o̶ l̶o̶n̶e̶l̶y̶ m̶e̶a̶n̶s̶ y̶o̶u̶ g̶i̶f̶t̶ o̶n̶l̶y̶ t̶o̶ y̶o̶u̶r̶s̶e̶l̶f̶.

And I realized this is the construction of the novel. Told in parts. Parts of absurdity. Multiple perspectives. Beyond the dead. Into the past. In dreams. In thoughts. In conversation. Sometimes with Lisa Simpson. Sometimes with Kareem Abdul Jabbar. It's disorganized because when you're through the trenches, there is so little organization. All you can do is push through it.

So I am. I really am pushing through. Though I've ignored messages. Though I've messed up a few emails. He probably doesn't love me anymore and my mother probably hates me more than she did when I was sixteen. My brother too. Aggravated. But I'm pushing through, shoving things aside, making way for one footstep forward, directionless direction. It looks like I'm treading water, or even drowning, but I am 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨.

"𝘐 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦. 𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦. 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥. 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘧 𝘐'𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯𝘴."

Cyrus will swim and swim and this is where focus is lost on the novel. Akbar loses steam in theme when it comes to being a martyr, and the novel takes on a conventional swell and "love saves all" moment that feels cheap in its 2008-happy-ending-dramedy. Akbar tries to get away with this through his skills as a poet. Beautiful language strings scenes together, creates a melody so beautiful it's hard to stop reading. But then the characters begin to sound the same, use the same metaphors in tone to convey that swell and that's where Akbar loses me, that's where the star is brought down a notch.

What could've been a perfect novel is still perfect in my biased reading because it's a novel that is happening. It's happening and it's human and it's so unashamed of wanting to understand what it means to be human.

I picked this up after coming out of [book:Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency|50755102], where Laing conveyed urgency. Made it urgent that I run to a gallery. Eyes wide open of art. For art. To live it. Breathe it. And here, Akbar's novel aligned so well with mine.

I'm trying to tell you, right now, that this book is half-full of who I am. Whether life is speaking to art or art is speaking to life, some higher power is motioning something in me, motioning this book with my life. I don't know if I'm in the first draft or third draft of my life, but I am half-full of gratitude. Though I may not show it to the people I've ignored. Though it may not seem like I mean it.

I am.

I am,
I am.

Honestly, I wasn't that pumped to read this book, but am glad I did. I enjoyed it WAY more than I thought I would. Rather than a deep dive into martyrs, this was more of a character study of a young man, who's lost in the world and within his bisecting (and often at-odds) identities.

The Martyrs themselves are referred to in poems sprinkled throughout the book (an editorial choice, I wasn't quite in love with). This book can read a little disjointed as Cyrus' quest for meaning in his life (and eventual death) is interspersed with flashbacks to both of his parents. While it can feel choppy to begin, overtime you can start to see a through-line between all of these perspectives, which are eloquently tied up by the end of the book.

The writing in this book is pretty killer. The author certainly has talent. Like this: "I demand to be forgiven. I demand the same leniences, rationalizations, granted to mediocre men for centuries." Cyrus is a self absorbed addict and a navel-gazing twenty-something, but he's honest about it and jokes about it, and his backstory makes it easier to empathize with him.

I really appreciated the author's insights in recovery and what it feels like to be sober. Like this sentence: "beautiful terrible, how sobriety disabuses you of the sense of your having been a gloriously misunderstood scumbag price shuffling between this or that narcotic crown." Perfection.

I didn't love the magical realism at the end of the book, but overall this was a solid read. Not sure everyone would love it, but it worked for me. Thank you to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was not like anything else I have ever read. It is a mix of prose, different POVs, and excerpts from a document. For Akbar's first novel, I was surprised at how immersed I felt as a reader. The novel brings up the ideas of family, connection, and culture. The main idea that was explored was the meaning of being a martyr which is not an idea I have really explored before this book, so it was thought-provoking.

Brilliancy in the form of a novel. What makes a Martyr? Akbar writes of death, grief, demons and so much more. A novel by a poet, is still a novel.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I’ve put off writing a review of this book because I’m not sure I have the words for it but here we go! It is a masterpiece. It has become a top 10 (maybe top 5) book of all time for me. I can’t stop thinking about it.

In addition to the incredible prose which made reading it and getting into the story so easy, Kaveh Akbar also plays with form and genre. There are excerpts from the book Cyrus is writing and poetry about the different martyrs in his Book of the Martyrs. Kaveh Akbar is a poet so these feel seamless and as excellent as the prose. His portrayal of addiction, heartbreak, hopelessness, dying, and death are esquisite and there is so much life in it. Somewhere in the muck of it all he births hope in the reader. There is humor, absurdity, love, and reinvention. It’s beautiful.

I annotated so many incredible quotes that I do not have time or space to put them all in here but I loved this one about language:

“It was invented, of course, language. The first baby didn’t come out speaking Farsi or Arabic or English or anything. We invented it, this language where one man is called Iraqi and one man is called Iranian and so they kill each other. Where one man is called an officer so he sends other men, with heads and hearts the size of his own, to split their stomachs open over barbed wire. Because of language, this sound stands for this thing, that sound stands for that thing, all these invented sounds strutting around, certain as roosters. It was no wonder we got it so wrong.”

I really wish I had gotten a physical ARC after reading this book because it is one I will have to have a physical copy of and reread it. It is out January 23, 2024 which feels long but will be here so soon! Go get a copy of this book. Support a local bookstore use Libro.FM or Bookshop.org.

Thank you @netgalley and @aaknopf for my advanced copy in exchange for a fair review.
#martyr #netgalley

This book was absolutely stunning. When a poet writes a novel, they either can't understand how prose works and has little happen in lovely language, or they GET IT SPOT ON. This is lyrical with incredible imagery and word usage - as you'd expect from a poet. But the story is also interesting and moves and I was riveted from the beginning. The conversation of being between two cultures felt so real and in ways that I think a lot of people don't vocalize.

I really hope Akbar continues to write novels. I'll devour them all.

"Webster defines a martyr as someone who sacrifices something of immense value, even their own life, for the sake of a principle.
With Cyrus Shams we are introduced to an orphaned Iranian, Cyrus, navigating a self-imposed purgatory. His journey is one of grappling with the throes of alcoholism, exploring artistic endeavors, and struggling to form and cherish meaningful friendships. He has one true friend who helps him on this journey. His fascination with mortality takes an intriguing turn when he becomes captivated by Orkideh, a renowned Iranian artist who transforms her impending demise into an art form.
This brief synopsis encapsulates what felt like an expansive journey within the book's pages. The initial segment unfolds poetically, painting vivid portraits of the quest for significance in life. However, the narrative takes a divergent path in the second part, offering disjointed tales of characters who enter and exit Cyrus's world fleetingly, some perhaps never truly existing within it. Initially challenging, this section nearly prompted me to set the book aside. Yet, just as I contemplated doing this, the narrative swiftly transitions in the third part, adopting a prose that propels the story forward with a dynamic pace.

Martyr (January 2024)
By Kaveh Akbar
Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf, 352 pages.
★★★

Cyrus Shams doesn’t want to die; he just doesn’t wish to live. He thinks about becoming a martyr, but not for ideological reasons. Cyrus just wants his life to have meant something. Suicide is out, as he sees it as an act of greed. Instead he opts for a ascetic lifestyle.

Cyrus has a lot on his plate. He was born into a family that didn’t fancy residing under Iran’s theocratic government, which took power in 1979. Ali and his infant son relocated to the United States, with Roya set to join them later. Alas, her plane was ill-fated Flight 655, which was shot down in 1988 by a missile from the USS Vincennes killing all 290 passengers. It was a complete screwup by the U.S. but President Reagan’s “apology” was muted, given ongoing tensions between the two countries since the storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and holding American hostages for 444 days.

A mother’s senseless death could make a child grow up bitter. So too could seeing his father reduced to gumping chickens to support his shattered family. Nor was life in Indiana a comfortable place for a Muslim like Cyrus to come of age. When Ali dies, Cyrus struggles with being an orphan. He drifts through adolescence fixated on purity as a way to deal with his angst. When he enters Keady University in 2015–perhaps a stand-in for Butler, Akbar’s alma mater–Cyrus flips the other way.

Out with purity and in with debauchery! Cyrus takes drugs, distances himself from his remaining Iranian relatives, ignores his faith, and earns money role-playing a patient for medical student training, though it’s often a cruel outlet for his burgeoning cynicism. He also beds several women, including the wealthy Kathleen, who is neither culturally sensitive nor concerned about throwing money around with reckless disregard. It’s a doomed relationship, but she further underwrites drinking bouts that send Cyrus spiraling into alcoholism.

Cyrus broods and dabbles at writing a (sort of) guidebook for martyrs. His Polish-Egyptian roommate Zbigniew Ramadan Novak (“ Zee”) becomes his best friend, occasional lover, and partner in a few strange adventures. One involves performing odd jobs for an employer who watches them from a lawn chair while wearing only his white underwear. Overall, though, Cyrus is depressed, whiny, and irritable. He muses over the poetry of Rumi, has unusual dreams, and wonders how he can free himself from the “tyranny” of symbols. Once he gets sober he fixates anew on what sort of death would justify his life. What he misses is that martyrdom is a purposeful step linked to deeply held ideals, not something that happens through intellectualized passivity. That makes him unlikely to follow in the footsteps of the hunger strikers, suffragettes, and revolutionaries he admires.

When Cyrus finally rouses himself into action it is to travel to the Brooklyn Museum, where renowned visual artist Orkideh has placed herself in an exhibit titled “Death-Speak.” She is terminally ill and spends her final days holding court for museum visitors who wish to gawk at or talk with her. Cyrus is drawn to her for reasons he can’t articulate other than she too is Iranian. He repeatedly visits and leaves each day believing that Orkideh has connected with him on a deep level. Her death leaves him despondent, though discussions with Sang, her gallerist and ex-wife, are revelatory.

Sexuality is fluid in Martyr and advance copies have reviewed well in LGBTQ+ circles. Nonetheless, though Koveh Akbar is an accomplished poet, Martyr exhibits some first novel misfires. It lacks burnish and has periodic structural breakdowns. Akbar fumbles an opportunity to discuss American voyeurism and focuses overlong on Cyrus’s woe-is-me worldview. To be sure, literature is filled with depressives, but usually they navigate through crises, whereas Cyrus is mostly listless. The book’s most revelatory sections deal with being a Muslim in the Midwest, which readers will likely ponder more than Cyrus does. It’s also hard to ignore a happy ending that comes at us so fast that it feels contrived. It’s not that we wish Cyrus to remain mired in malaise, but his abrupt hopeful conversion, if you will, doesn’t ring true for a character as melancholy as he. Call Akbar’s an interesting first novel with room for growth.

Rob Weir

If I were queer and Muslim, I would be this main character. That's the universal beauty that Kaveh Akbar paints with the brush of this very particular poet/mystic/depressed artist/Enneagram 4 (if you know, you know). Cyrus Shams was born in Iran and left at an early age after his mother's passenger plane, Iranian Flight 655, was shot down by an American warship over the Persian Gulf. His father relocated to Indiana to work on a chicken farm to give his son new possibility. Cyrus dove into drugs and alcohol to escape his own sensitivity and pain. Now, newly sober, he seeks to make sense of life, love, and death by investigating why people die and for what purpose - especially the mysterious artist who is dying publicly of cancer as a performance piece at the Met.

As a poetic soul in recovery who grew up in Indiana, I was immediately drawn to Cyrus both in his beauty and in his shame. Akbar, a poet himself, intersperses concrete details of life on campus and the city with poetry and reflections on God, meaning, love and pain. He neatly contemplates this gigantic themes without being preachy or too vague, as only a poet can do. And the multifaceted and multigendered love relationships here are handled sensitively without being too preachy, relationships that anyone can relate to - even a straight white Mennonite boy.

I am not sure how to even talk about this book. It's weird, it's disjointed, it's all over the place and yet it also has so much heart. The story seems like it's going nowhere, it requires a lot of patience to stick with it and follow the writer's journey and musings about religion, addiction, belonging, grief, death, martyrdom, art and more. But then at some point it starts to come together and then it's not possible to not get swept up with the story. By the time you're done, it's one of those books where the people and the story stay with you long after you turn the last page.

with gratitude to netgalley and Knopf for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

MARTYR-Kaveh Akbar
This is a very difficult book for me to evaluate.
The last third of the book is terrific but I had a very difficult time with the first part.The main character-Cyrus Shams-is traumatized early in life by his mother’s death in a plane accidentally shot down by an American missile.Over the course of the book he spirals through alcohol drug addiction and eventual sobriety. He struggles to give meaning to his life and that of others through martyrdom.
The problem for me was the story line of most of the book. It felt disjointed, with no coherent plot line and seemed to chaotically move from character to character without any coherence.I always finish a read( and glad I did given the ending) but almost quit several t times. The book just didn’t work for me, perhaps my fault because it got such rave reviews.

This is a thought provoking story. The first bit was hard for me, but once I got into the main character, he grew on me. So many emotions were invoked while reading. Well done.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

Martyr! was a bit of a wild ride. It took me a while to become invested in the main character's struggle to find meaning in life, but at the halfway point of the book, I realized I was deeply invested and raced to the end.

Martyr! is not just about death, which the title implies, but about how to live life with meaning and purpose -- and if we slowed down for a minute and set down our phones, that might well be the question haunting all of us.

Literary fiction at its best. Kaveri Akbars writing transported me right into this story transported me from my world into the lives of his characters their world.A book I will be recommending to all book lovers.#netgalley #knopf

I loved this book desperately. It does so many things and does them all so well. It takes on grief, death, family, addiction, and love and weaves them together with such depth and sensitivity, each feels thoroughly examined and uniquely represented. The characters are drawn with such detail and care, they implanted directly into my heart. The storyline itself is compelling and perfectly crafted. Sometimes I find changing perspectives and time periods jarring and that it takes me out of the story, but here it's executed with such precision and purpose I happily went for the ride, and it paid off.

I recommend this book for anyone who needs to be quickly absorbed into a compelling story where every character is worth knowing. It's perfect for folks to look at death, grief, and life's purpose with an author whose perspective on those subjects is so deeply considered. The writing is gorgeous, the story is riveting, and the characters are robust. It has it all!

I wanted to love this book, but it felt too disjointed. The experience was fragmented in a way that didn’t feel particularly rewarding or captivating, despite me really liking the themes.

Kaveh Akbar wields language like a magician. His literary and poetic abilities are brought to bear in this book with a brutal honesty as we follow the main character and his struggle to make sense of this world we live in. The novel reads smoothly, a fiction story with an eye to language and the way we can use it to move through this world. I felt empathy for the main character and was happy to read along and learn more about his journey. As an Iranian, this was particularly a pleasure to read.

The first thing I thought when I came to the end of this book was, "Well, we need more literary love stories."

This is more than a love story, but love is a theme. Purpose, friendship, the hardship of being alive and making meaning out of the strange coincidences that move us from one thing to the next. Akbar throws a lot of things together here -- a book within a book, Dickensian-level plot, fantasy sequences, poetry -- and mostly, it works. There were parts I liked better than others, sections I found myself rushing through to get back to the thread of story I cared most about, but then a sentence or a phrase would be stop me in my hurry. Akbar is a poet, and you can see that in the language and the elliptical structure.

I was always excited to pick this book up. Always interested in where it would go next.

I love love loved this book! So much! Life, grief, happiness, and the burden of living were done so well here. Truly I want everyone to read this like immediately, but I suppose I’ll just have to wait. I related to Cyrus on an almost cosmic level & I just cannot wait for others to read this as well!