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A review by dobbsthedog
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
5.0
I loved this book. I absolutely loved it.
It’s a book about love; loving yourself, loving your friends, the love of your family, love of your art. I feel like it had a lot of nuanced things to say about love, life, death, and identity, and I’m not quite sure how to properly express it. I feel like I just read something quite profound, but am unsure of how to talk about it.
The book is about Cyrus Shams, an Iranian immigrant whose mother was killed when her plane was shot down when he was an infant. His father immigrates with him to the US, and he grows up mostly American. Cyrus is a poet, is in recovery, and is at loose ends, obsessed with the idea of death. He has the idea to write a book about martyrs, then learns about an artist who has terminal cancer and is living her last days as an art exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, so he goes to speak with her. This turns into something hugely profound to him, but I can’t say more than that, because of spoilers!
The book jumps around a lot, and while it’s mostly told from Cyrus’ POV, we also get glimpses into other lives as well; his mother and father, his best friend. There are also snippets from his WIP book, small bits about different martyrs throughout history. Through these time jumps, we get a pretty clear picture of Cyrus’ life. I’m not always the biggest fan of these sorts of timeline jumps, but it worked very well in this story.
This is the first I’ve ever read from Kaveh Akbar, and I will absolutely be on the lookout for any future books by him. I don’t know that I’ve accurately described just how good this book is, so just take my word for it, it really is excellent.
It’s a book about love; loving yourself, loving your friends, the love of your family, love of your art. I feel like it had a lot of nuanced things to say about love, life, death, and identity, and I’m not quite sure how to properly express it. I feel like I just read something quite profound, but am unsure of how to talk about it.
The book is about Cyrus Shams, an Iranian immigrant whose mother was killed when her plane was shot down when he was an infant. His father immigrates with him to the US, and he grows up mostly American. Cyrus is a poet, is in recovery, and is at loose ends, obsessed with the idea of death. He has the idea to write a book about martyrs, then learns about an artist who has terminal cancer and is living her last days as an art exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, so he goes to speak with her. This turns into something hugely profound to him, but I can’t say more than that, because of spoilers!
The book jumps around a lot, and while it’s mostly told from Cyrus’ POV, we also get glimpses into other lives as well; his mother and father, his best friend. There are also snippets from his WIP book, small bits about different martyrs throughout history. Through these time jumps, we get a pretty clear picture of Cyrus’ life. I’m not always the biggest fan of these sorts of timeline jumps, but it worked very well in this story.
This is the first I’ve ever read from Kaveh Akbar, and I will absolutely be on the lookout for any future books by him. I don’t know that I’ve accurately described just how good this book is, so just take my word for it, it really is excellent.