A review by starrysteph
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Martyr! asks some big, messy, complicated questions - how can we ensure our lives and deaths have meaning? - through rich characters, layered timelines and narrators, and language that is both poetic and simple to take in.

Cyrus is looking at the puzzle pieces of his life and not quite sure what they all mean. His mother died in a horrific accident when he was a baby in Tehran, shot by an American missile in a civilian plane. His dad spent his days hard at work on a chicken farm before leaving as quietly as he lived. And his uncle is haunted by his job as an Iranian soldier, dressed as an Angel and comforting dying soldiers on the battlefield.

Now, adult Cyrus is fighting to stay sober, pushing away love, writing poetry, and dreaming of martyrs. He’s obsessed with the act of dying for something and doesn’t know how to fully grasp it, and his journey of researching martyrs leads to some unexpected truths about his history and future.

There are dark topics at play here, but the writing is clever and quick. It’s very clear that Kaveh Akbar is a poet, but his words are crisp and not too heady. They land precisely right.

Cyrus can make frustrating decisions, but he is so multilayered and so earnest with his search for martyrdom that it is hard not to love him. He’s a great analyst, though he sometimes misses what is right in front of his face. And his narration is so vulnerable and so intimate.

“If the mortal sin of the suicide is greed, to hoard stillness and calm for yourself while dispersing your riotous internal pain among all those who survive you, then the mortal sin of the martyr must be pride, the vanity, the hubris to believe not only that your death could mean more than your living, but that your death could mean more than death itself—which, because it is inevitable, means nothing.”

The interludes of narration from Cyrus’ family were just as interesting, and an additional element that I loved were the dream sequences. To help his insomnia, Cyrus imagines two figures (historical, real, people he knows, people he doesn’t) having a conversation - a classic writing exercise. And we get to witness them interact, sometimes with a wink to the fact that they are actually iterations of Cyrus’ thoughts and mind. Each sequence was fascinating. 

This is a book that celebrates the act of dreaming, that comforts the artist in all of us, that challenges what it means to have lived a worthwhile life, that welcomes uncertainty and bewilderment, and so much more. It didn’t offer up a grand emotional release, but instead thousands of little sparks of curiosity and the warmth of seeing some of my quietest thoughts and questions reflected back at me.

“He felt a flash of familiar shame—his whole life had been a steady procession of him passionately loving what other people merely liked, and struggling, mostly failing, to translate to anyone else how and why everything mattered so much.”

CW: death (parent), addiction, alcoholism, suicide, grief, cancer, terminal illness, racism, abandonment, islamophobia, queerphobia, infidelity, mental illness, xenophobia, war, pregnancy, slurs, self harm, vomit

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)