Scan barcode
A review by emmalong
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
5.0
a brand new author that i can't begin to explain my excitement for. this book has my favorite opening line in recent history:
"Maybe it was that Cyrus had done the wrong drugs in the right order, or the right drugs in the wrong order, but when God finally spoke back to him after twenty-seven years of silence, what Cyrus wanted more than anything else was a do-over." this author can WRITE, and i will absolutely be checking out his poetry, considering how gorgeous and lyrical his prose was.
our newly sober protagonist is on a mission to identify and examine martyrs in the past and modern world through any means necessary. after growing up as an Iranian immigrant in America following the death of his mother, we travel alongside Cyrus in his quest to identify our reasons for dying and if they can be more profound than our reasons for living. his mother died in what Cyrus considers a senseless way, as a passenger on an Iranian flight shot out of the sky by the United States army. what could her death be reconfigured to mean? during his journey, he finds an artist in New York who is dying of cancer and spending her last days in a museum speaking with those who wish to talk to her. Cyrus and his friend take a trip east and there are beautiful conversations on art, what it means to be a person, friendship, humanity, and believing in life being something worth living. i absolutely adored this book and will be keeping this author on my radar.
"Maybe it was that Cyrus had done the wrong drugs in the right order, or the right drugs in the wrong order, but when God finally spoke back to him after twenty-seven years of silence, what Cyrus wanted more than anything else was a do-over." this author can WRITE, and i will absolutely be checking out his poetry, considering how gorgeous and lyrical his prose was.
our newly sober protagonist is on a mission to identify and examine martyrs in the past and modern world through any means necessary. after growing up as an Iranian immigrant in America following the death of his mother, we travel alongside Cyrus in his quest to identify our reasons for dying and if they can be more profound than our reasons for living. his mother died in what Cyrus considers a senseless way, as a passenger on an Iranian flight shot out of the sky by the United States army. what could her death be reconfigured to mean? during his journey, he finds an artist in New York who is dying of cancer and spending her last days in a museum speaking with those who wish to talk to her. Cyrus and his friend take a trip east and there are beautiful conversations on art, what it means to be a person, friendship, humanity, and believing in life being something worth living. i absolutely adored this book and will be keeping this author on my radar.