Martyr! A Novel
Ratings96
Average rating4.1
This was a fantastic book. I did originally “judge the book by the cover” I thought it was a lighthearted comedic book. Boy was I wrong on that. It is very dark with thoughts of suicide and being a “martyr” but it really is about making your life a life worth living.
The conversations between Cyrus and the dying artist, Orkidah, are the true backbone of the novel. Often very poignant.
This is probably one of the best books I have read in years. Thought provoking and very well written. I wish I had a book club to discuss.
I cannot recommend this book more.
Okay it has been a week later and I am still thinking about this book. It has burrowed into my brain. I have so many questions, especially about the ending. I keep having different theories as to what actually happened and what the clues might have been. No spoilers but all I can say is that it is a great book. Updated to 5 stars. If you live in my brain for a week you deserve it
Cyrus Shams is an unpublished poet, former alcoholic, and recovering drug addict pretending to have terminal illnesses to train doctors on their bedside manner. He's profoundly, inconsolably, suicidally, sad but comes off as a bit of an emo 20-something. As the story opens we find him lying on his mattress that smells like piss and Febreeze and dreaming of becoming a martyr.
Cyrus' mother was in a plane mistakenly shot out of the sky by the US Navy, his uncle dressed as the angel of death to comfort dying soldiers in the field and now wrestles with PTSD, and his father made it to the US to see Cyrus off to college before dying himself. In New York to see an artist installation by a woman named Orkideh who, dying of breast cancer, sits in the museum and answers questions, Cyrus is immediately pegged by her as just “another death-obsessed Iranian man.”
Throw in some dream interludes where Lisa Simpson chats with his mother and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar makes an appearance, one hell of a coincidence, and snippets of poetry and you've got a free-wheeling, debut novel with a poet's careful consideration of language that's still careening all over the place while riding a swelling wave of critical love. A messy, imperfect, but wonderfully ambitious outing.
One of the books that made me cry in 2024. It's got a lot going for it: a deeply flawed, deeply likeable main character, really really interesting thoughts on martyrdom and *especially* how it relates to culture/heritage/history, is written very beautifully, and has some interesting conversations about being suicidal. I read this during a dark time in life, and while I wouldn't really recommend it, it certainly amplified a lot of emotions I was having/the writing was trying to produce and most definitely skewed my enjoyment of it towards the positive as it was talking about feelings I struggled to write about properly. So big props just for that, gift a copy to your depressed friends if you want to see them go through a lot. Like other reviewers, I found the ending lackluster and brought down the whole book with it, though Orkideh's story was very beautiful. Truthfully, when I finished it I thought it was one of those books that would stick with me for a long time.. but at the end of the month, I was very close to having to consult my notes app to remember I read it. Moreso a fault of my terrible memory. The reason I didn't have to is because of what I believe is the actual highlight of this book.
I read a lot of good books or at least books I liked in 2024. Out of all of them, my favorite (or at least top 3) character would have to be Zee. He is absolutely delightful, a wonderful side character that feels so... human, for lack of a better word. My favorite chapter (p. 217 in my copy, Brooklyn day 3) is my favorite because of him, and every scene he's in was, to me like how it was to Cyrus, a much needed wake-up call. Somewhere along the way I started relating to him more. Bless the Zees of the world.
3.5
Biggest pet peeve with books is when they tell me rather than show me “Cyrus felt uncomfortable” bruh
Too flowery, too bound up in the telling of an addiction story, and too misunderstanding what martyrdom is. Dying for belief in the face of persecution makes a martyr, not finding a way to die that suffuses it with meaning. Build something, no matter how small, that can reverberate briefly in this world after you have departed for whatever lies in the next.
3.75/5
Beautiful language and prose, but I feel the allure of the story falls off a lot towards the end. Still a good read.
Ehhh, I found this kind of infuriating, but maybe because it's the kind of book I would try to write myself and I found that embarrassing. It has all the hallmarks of a book I should like and maybe that's why I didn't? All the chapters that weren't from the authors POV annoyed me irrationally. The ending annoyed me even though it's the only “plot” that happened, which I guess is good because it was just cliche tropes. All that being said I found it very readable and despite not enjoying it, I kept reading it.
This was a fantastic book. I did originally “judge the book by the cover” I thought it was a lighthearted comedic book. Boy was I wrong on that. It is very dark with thoughts of suicide and being a “martyr” but it really is about making your life a life worth living.
The conversations between Cyrus and the dying artist, Orkidah, are the true backbone of the novel. Often very poignant.
This is probably one of the best books I have read in years. Thought provoking and very well written. I wish I had a book club to discuss.
I cannot recommend this book more.
Okay it has been a week later and I am still thinking about this book. It has burrowed into my brain. I have so many questions, especially about the ending. I keep having different theories as to what actually happened and what the clues might have been. No spoilers but all I can say is that it is a great book. Updated to 5 stars. If you live in my brain for a week you deserve it
I felt utterly and desperately touched by this book. Expertly crafted storytelling with such deeply human characters. The poetry shines through prose, and it couldn't be told any better than from its author's voice.
Literary fiction following Cyrus an Iranian American writer, orphaned twice, obsessed with death, sober from alcohol and drugs, tries to find a new subject for writing and meets a dying artist in residence named Orkideh.
What a gorgeous book this was ! First of all the writing was stunning, which didn't surprise me given that the author is a poet. He tackles a variety of important thematics like death, life, faith, art etc and while some parts felt a bit clunky (not developed enough for me or didn't interest me), there was a real emotionality to his story, with so many moments that hit me hard. I loved the overall queerness and it had one of my favourite trope but I won't say anything else because of spoilers. Various points of view and flashbacks are scattered throughout the book, some I liked more than others and I especially loved reading the ones with Roya, Cyrus' mother and Zee, Cyrus' best friend. I did love the use of mixed media, and the ending was certainly interesting and unexpected. Overall a gorgeous, by no means perfect but an emotionally truthful debut novel, I'm looking forward to read more from Kaveh Akbar.
The big reveal at the end and everything that follows it feels a little corny, all this acceptance, redemption, making peace with the world and oneself thing. The first 250 pages are bonkers.
“An alphabet, like a life, is a finite set of shapes. With it, one can produce almost anything.”
The characters and strong, flowing prose make this a quicker-than-expected read. There is a clear theme throughout - even if the moral of the story and the path the protagonist takes in his search for purpose is a little convoluted. But what makes this a quality read is the dynamic writing, character depth, and strong dialogue that's coupled with a solid story structure and a few surprises.
Not my favourite, though it did leave me thinking a lot - which I take as a good sign. I didn't love the way the book jumps from one character story to another, it felt harder to connect to each story. I wanted to read more about character X and it suddenly jumped to someone else. I did enjoy Cyruses dreams, fun and improbable.
Big-L literary, and one I have mixed feelings about. I loved SO many parts, but am not sure the whole was completely cohesive. Really thought-provoking insight about making death count, and making your life have meaning. Will absolutely read more by the author. Audiobook narration was fantastic.
ETA: National Book Prize Finalist 10/1/24, if that kind of thing is important to you. Martyr! is not at all my usual read, and it's difficult to articulate why I liked it so much. I'll list a few random highlights and hope they will suffice. *Debut novelist Kaveh Akbar is a poet, and his writing sings (like poet-turned-novelist Ocean Vuong's [b:On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1615580168l/41880609.SX50.jpg 61665003], but with less tragedy and more cynicism).MC Cyrus Shams is a young Iranian-American man. His familiar struggle to figure out the Meaning of Life is coupled with the desire to make his death meaningful as well, like the martyrs of his country of origin. Not coincidentally, Cyrus' own mother died in a 1988 airplane crash when a U.S. Navy warship shot down an Iranian commercial airplane, killing everyone on board (this actually happened). In addition to Cyrus' first person POV, there are close 3rd person POV chapters from Cyrus' dad, who worked on an Iowa chicken farm for decades to support himself and his son; Orkideh, an NYC artist who has transformed her own impending death into a piece of performance art; and Cyrus' uncle, whose Iran-Iraq wartime role was to serve as a literal Angel of Death for men who were dying on the battlefield. *The narrative includes bizarre dream conversations between Cyrus' family members and famous people (Lisa Simpson and his dead mother; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the little brother Cyrus always wanted). A WTF? ambiguous ending cost the novel a star (either Cyrus was transformed by love, or he died). Even though Martyr! took me outside my reading comfort zone, it was, surprisingly, just right for me at this particular moment in time.
Oh, Martyr! How I wanted to love you.
Cyrus, you were a fine character. Messy, frustrating, beautiful and human. As unattractive as your selfishness could be, let's be honest, it was also relatable. We're all too interested in ourselves and not enough in others. Your moments of clarity were near ecstatic and I don't believe a reader could ever stop rooting for you. Zee and Roya exuded humanity in their specific ways as well, and Ali too, though perhaps to a lesser extent.
And Cyrus, your dreams! How divine. Capturing both the absurdity of our unconscious orchestrations and the way we earnestly accept them, no matter how outlandish. These sequences were sublime.
I loved the voice, language, and characters of this book. And I almost loved the story, but late in the game, a crucial plot development left me cold and incredulous. I was devasted by this authorial choice, and though there was so much to love, for me the story problem tarnishes the novel.
A sad, reluctant 3.5 stars.
Update: Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction.
I honestly don't get the hype surrounding this novel. Is the author part of a clique of glitterati? The language is not particularly beautiful, the plot is barely there, stretched over too many pages, and the themes are, again, nothing to go crazy about.
This book had so much love, so much heart, that I don’t know if I can contain it all. Kaveh Akbar disappears into the book and leaves you with characters so real you’d swear they exist. It’s a heavy book—anyone battling with mental illness or addiction may find it too raw. That is a testament to its observation and immediacy. If you can, let Martyr! shake you.
It unfurls until it's bigger than the men, then it keeps unfurling until it's bigger than the world.
A poet writes a novel and the prose is beautiful. I had never heard of Kaveh Akbar before this year and I was drawn to this book at first based on the physical object. The cover is arresting but it was also in a format I hadn't seen before: a European trade paperback. It's sort of equivalent to the hardback I'm used to. It comes out first, is pricier. It's just a bigger paperback. All of this to say, a larger than life book with a great cover, an unknown, and a title like Martyr!, always with exclamation mark. It got me.
It's a confident, swaggering book. Dream sequences, notoriously pointless and annoying, in Akbar's hands are touching and very funny. Humour runs throughout this pretty tragic story. He knows how to joke about US-Iranian relations, the search for God, and the search for his mother.
I can't really get it across to you how brilliant the prose is in this chaotic, swerving but beautiful book. Great books often feel like a magic trick by the end. All the scraps laid down for you suddenly come together and the author reveals a live dove that flies away. Martyr! certainly does that; the ending is a beautiful culmination. But what makes it special is you feel like Akbar could do this all day.
Still not sure how I feel about the ending, but everything else was incredibly written and resonated with me greatly