Martyr! (2024)
Why this one?
This was an ARC from Pan Macmillan via Netgalley (many thanks!) - I chose this one just on the basis of the description, which sounded up my street.
Kaveh Akbar (1989- ; active 2014- ) was born in Tehran, Iran but moved to the United States at two years old. He studied at Purdue and Butler University, both in Indiana, before completing a PhD in creative writing at Florida State University. He is currently a faculty member at the University of Iowa.
Thusfar Akbar is best known for his poetry. He founded the poetry interview website Divedapper in 2014 and was described as "poetry's biggest cheerleader" by NPR in 2018. He was appointed poetry editor of The Nation in 2020. He has published three collections to date, Portrait of the Alcoholic and Calling a Wolf a Wolf (both 2017) and 2021's Pilgrim Bell, as well as editing the 2023 Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse. He also co-wrote poems for the 2018 Maggie Gyllenhaal film The Kindergarten Teacher.
Akbar is in recovery and has used his writing to document and help with his struggles with addiction. Martyr! is his debut novel, due for release in 2024.
Thoughts, etc.
Martyr! introduces us to Cyrus Shams, a recently sober son of Iranian immigrants (and evidently an autobiographical proxy for the author). As a child he moved to the US following the loss of his mother when her plane (Iran Air Flight 655; based on a real incident) was shot down over the Persian Gulf by US forces. His father, who made his way in the States as a factory farm worker, has also died, leaving Cyrus seeking meaning initially in narcotics but subsequently in poetry.
Cyrus becomes interested (or rather obsessed) with the concept of martyrdom, aiming to write a collection of poems celebrating famous martyrs. He's unsure whether to include his mother in the collection, wrestling with whether her loss had a purpose or not, and ponders his own desire for self-annihilation for a great cause - which he has yet to find.
His close friend and casual lover Zee alerts him to an interesting exhibition taking place in Brooklyn, in which a terminally ill female Iranian artist known as Orkideh is staging a Marina Abramovic-esque installation in which members of the public are invited to speak to her about subjects relating to death. Cyrus and Zee travel to New York, and Cyrus gets to know Orkideh, in the process upending everything he thought he knew.
Cyrus is the clearly the focus of the novel, and the bulk of the novel is told from his perspective. He's an engagingly self-destructive character, drifting through life without a sense of purpose but able to take some solace in friendship and poetry, as well as possessing a darkly humourous side. If he's not the most original creation in recent literature, he's definitely a very successful embodiment of a certain archetype. His attempts to connect with his Iranian heritage through poetry despite his very American upbringing bring both humour and sadness, and his complex but touching relationship with Zee adds depth.
Some of the (darkly) funniest sections in the book involve Cyrus' work outside his poetry. Towards the start of the novel, he's taken up a role in the training of doctors in which he has to portray characters being given bad news, often relating to terminal illness, which Cyrus manages to very starkly turn into being all about himself. Elsewhere his recounting of an odd job he and Zee took up in which they provide "domestic services" for a strange older man is a particular highlight.
Other sections of the book are told from the perspective of Cyrus' family members, including his father, his mother, and his uncle, who is haunted by his role in the Iran-Iraq war in which he dressed as the angel of death in order to comfort dying soldiers on the battlefield. These sections are generally good, but fall down a little because the characters' stories (with the possible exception of his mother's) are only developed insofar as they feed into Cyrus' central narrative.
Far more interesting, weird (in a good way) and sometimes amusing are the sections in which Cyrus recounts his dreams in which he manipulates famous (living, dead and even fictional characters) into having imaginary conversations. These are a rare exception to the general rule that hearing about other people's dreams is almost always supremely tedious. The section involving Lisa Simpson and those involving the barely disguised Trump stand-in "President Invective" are especially brilliant. They're indicative of a novel that both deals with reality and isn't afraid to diverge from it in the service of the creation of meaning outside of everyday "truth", a fact also expressed through its unusual and beautiful conclusion.
It's not a perfect book: its big reveal feels a little contrived (though possibly deliberately so) and it's uneven in places. Overall though, I thought it was an incredibly assured and exciting debut novel. I'm rarely a fan of poets writing novels, but this didn't feel like that at all. While it deals with the healing powers of poetry, and is punctuated by "Cyrus'" martyr poems between each section, its main thrust is classic prose, simple and effective and left mercifully undisturbed by poetic flourishes or unnecessary obfuscation. Its characters (especally Cyrus himself) are memorable and engaging and its story gripping and page-turning, and it was one of those books that I was excited to pick up every time, never quite knowing what to expect.
Score
9
A really exciting debut, and a huge amount of fun to read despite its broad and deep subject matter. I hope it gets the attention it deserves on release next year.
Next up
I’m currently reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, which I’ll probably finish next before reading any more new releases.
