Martyr! – Kaveh Akbar

READ FOR BOOKCLUB
Chosen by Rachel

Cryus Shams is an Iranian immigrant and a recently sober poet grappling with addiction, cultural disconnection and the loss of his mother, whose plane was shot down by the US navy. In his exploration of what it means to live well and die well, Cyrus becomes friends with a dying artist at the Brooklyn Museum. Martyr! is an exploration of identity, grief, inherited trauma, art and martyrdom.

It’s easy for people who have sacrificed nothing to rationalize their own ordinariness by calling me lucky. But I sacrificed my entire life; I sold it to the abyss. And the abyss gave me art.

●  Martyr! is a book that extensively examines death, but I did not find it sad. Rather I found the treatment of death as a lens to examine life and existence. Martyrdom was not conveyed as a religious or immoral aspiration but as something meaningful that encapsulated and concluded the goodness of life. Shouldn’t our death mean something, just as we hope our life has purpose? It is a profound book where every sentence is raw and poetic. I felt stunned by the book’s beauty and hope Akbar writes many more works of art in the future. – Rachel

● I read this novel over a hectic two-week period and as a result found it hard to give my full focus which left me feeling a little removed. During bookclub discussions I came to truly appreciate and understand that Akbar redefined martyrdom as a struggle not for religious or political glory, but for personal meaning amid a life of addiction, grief, and cultural displacement. This gave it more meaning for me that I originally garnered. – Jodie

● Martyr! brought the reader along on the journey, from Iraninan army recruitment to the Brooklyn Museum. While there were aspects of the plot, particularly the parent-child relationship, that felt somewhat implausible, overall I enjoyed experiencing the world through Cyrus’s eyes. – Suzy

Published in 2024
Knopf
352 pages