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Kaveh Akbar

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Martyr!: A novel Kindle Edition

by Kaveh Akbar (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

6,152 ratings

Editors' pick Best Books of the Year 2024

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • ATIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR • A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

“Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.” —Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of There There

“The best novel you'll ever read about the joy of language, addiction, displacement, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness.” —Lauren Groff, best-selling author of Matrix and Fates and Furies

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.

From the Publisher

brilliant and blisteringly alive says john green

elegant, dizzying, playful says lauren groff

rip-roaringly funny. wise and wise-assed says mary karr

WARNING: California’s Proposition 65

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Incandescent . . . Akbar has created an indelible protagonist, haunted, searching, utterly magnetic. But it speaks to Akbar’s storytelling gifts that Martyr! is both a riveting character study and piercing family saga . . . Akbar is a dazzling writer, with bars like you wouldn't believe . . . What Akbar pulls off in Martyr! is nothing short of miraculous.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Brilliant . . . steeped in humor and absurdity but deathly serious as well . . . The strength of Martyr! is that Akbar arranges its various messes well and doesn’t strive too hard to reconcile them.” —Los Angeles Times

“Martyr! is almost violently artful, full of sentences that stab, pierce, and slice with their beauty . . . Reading this prose can feel like watching an Olympic athlete perform household tasks: Akbar’s writing has the musculature of poetry that can’t rely on narrative propulsion and so propels itself. It’s tonally nuanced—in command of a dazzling spectrum of frequencies from comedic to tragic—rigorous, and surprising.” —The New Yorker

“Wry, blasphemous, grim, grimy and moving . . . Martyr! is so much its own creation that comparisons don't help. Maybe you could think of it as something of an Iranian American spin on John Kennedy Toole's comic picaresque A Confederacy Of Dunces, wedded to Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, another meditation on a missing mother and the unpredictable power of art.” —NPR

“Reading Martyr! is a delight. Sensual, oneiric and wonderfully strange, Akbar intuits the mind’s talent for distilling meaning from the surreal. His fiction taps his expertise in conjuring an experiential purity—through metaphor and with humor that lands.” —The Washington Post

“An existential comedy about the difficulty of finding beauty in banality and sense in suffering . . . In writing this novel about a would-be martyr lost amid the banal clichés and tired stories Americans tell themselves in order to live, Akbar has shown that the only way to make meaning out of meaninglessness is to become the author of our own story.” —The Atlantic

“Akbar's debut is full of love, fury, humor and wisdom. Protagonist Cyrus Shams-poet, recovering alcoholic, son of one of the passengers- is coming straight for your heart.” —People

“A deep-feeling, beautifully bruised debut novel . . . [Martyr!] reads like the book that Akbar has been building up to most of his life.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“A dazzling, thrilling debut novel about identity and loss . . . Martyr! thrillingly depicts why we cobble selves from alloys of words and cultures.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A brilliant and blisteringly alive novel about not just how we go on, but also why. Kaveh Akbar's first novel is so stunning, so wrenching, and so beautifully written that reading it for the first time, I kept forgetting to breathe. I will carry this story, and the people in it, with me for the rest of my life." —John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars

"I can’t remember the last time a book made me feel like this. Martyr! is simply extraordinary. The language moves across the page like a symphony, and the story vibrates with an energy that made the book impossible to put down. Kaveh Akbar has written a novel that will stay with me forever. What a story. What a voice. What a gift.” —Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed

“Kaveh Akbar renders the full spectrum of life, and death, with great beauty and care.” —Raven Leilani, author of Luster

“Kaveh Akbar is a radiant soul, a poet so agile and largehearted it comes as no surprise that his first leap into fiction is elegant, dizzying, playful. MARTYR! is the best novel you'll ever read about the joy of language, addiction, displacement, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness for people longed for but forever unknown, the way art as eruption of life gazes back into death, and the ecstasy that sometimes arrives—like grace—when we find ourselves teetering on the knife-edge of despair.” —Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies

“An absolute jewel of a novel. A diamond. I haven’t loved a book this much in years. Kaveh’s writing is so thoroughly powerful and gorgeous you can feel it from where dreams come, and in all over your brain, and straight from the bottom of your heart. This book does everything. It is so entirely funny and sad and true and beautiful. Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.”
—Tommy Orange, author of There There

“Kaveh Akbar has given birth to a hilarious marvel of a novel. Rip-roaringly funny. Wise and wise-assed. It’s about addiction and love, self-pity and rage and moving instants of profound redemption. Akbar stands among our greatest poets, but calling this novel lyrical isn’t code for lack of plot. Akbar is a black-belt storyteller, and Martyr! is a page-turner I couldn’t put down." —Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club

“I disappeared into Martyr!—utterly consumed by it—and then it returned me to the world with wider eyes, a swollen heart, and sharpened nerve endings. This is a book that understands the strangeness and grief and ecstasy of being alive; that understands the strange envelope of a body, the proximate sublime on the bare chest of a beloved; the baffled wonderment of sobriety, the grief that spans every scale of the human project—and, more than anything, the impossible salvation of love persisting not despite but through these materials. Kaveh Akbar writes with the staggering entirety of his mind and heart, and Martyr! will stay in my soul for good—a fever dream, a reckoning, a heartbreak, a shattering and mending, a delight—its double-helix of dreams and conversation now part of my own DNA for good." —Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams

“Poet Akbar (Pilgrim Bell, 2021) is an almost deliriously adept first-time novelist, writing from different points of view and darting back and forth in time and into Cyrus’ satirical dreams and the lives of Iranian poets from Rumi to Farrokhzad. Akbar creates scenes of psychedelic opulence and mystery, emotional precision, edgy hilarity, and heart-ringing poignancy as his characters endure war, grief, addiction, and sacrifice, and find refuge in art and love. Bedazzling and profound." —Booklist (starred review)

“Sublime . . . [Akbar’s] writing makes just enough time for beauty while never languishing . . . although a novel cannot capture what life is, its truths and inventions can powerfully gesture toward what life is like: full of both pain and pleasure, with death inevitable, and love a choice.” —Bookpage (starred review)

“Martyr! stands out as a work of uncommon artistic assuredness and vibrancy . . . As carried through by [Akbar’s] poetic pen and perspective, the novel is rich in humor, sharp observation, and a plea for self-love, and all bleakness balanced by a tenderness that generously insinuates itself like sun through shut blinds.” —Library Journal (starred review)

About the Author

KAVEH AKBAR’s poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the author of two poetry collections: Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf, in addition to a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic. He is also the editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 100 Poets on the Divine. He lives in Iowa City.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C3C886FY
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage (January 23, 2024)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 23, 2024
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 6.2 MB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 313 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #3,201 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #3 in LGBTQ+ Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #9 in Humorous Literary Fiction
- #25 in LGBTQ+ Fiction

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6,152 ratings

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Kaveh Akbar

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Kaveh Akbar is the author of the novel Martyr! and two books of poetry, Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf. He is also the author of a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic, and editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 110 Poets on the Divine and, with Paige Lewis, co-editor of Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance. Born in Tehran, Iran, Kaveh teaches at the University of Iowa. His writing appears in the New Yorker, PBS NewsHour, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, The New York Times, and elsewhere. Since 2020, Kaveh has served as poetry editor for The Nation.

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6,152 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find this novel captivating and thought-provoking, praising its multi-layered writing style and beautiful polysexual and sapphic representation. The book receives positive feedback for its wonderful characters and emotional depth, with one customer noting how the prose feels like effortless poetry. While some customers find the narrative convincing, others feel it falls short, and the ending receives mixed reactions.

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Storytelling Readability Writing quality Character development Art style Heartbreakingness Love Narrative quality

70 customers mention "Storytelling"70 positive0 negative

Customers praise the captivating narrative of the book, with one customer noting how it provides an interesting journey through life's chaotic experiences, while another highlights the insightful nuggets woven throughout the story.

"...Beyond the prose, Akbar’s fiction debut tackles a wide range of topics: grief, racism, sexuality, family dynamics, Persian culture, gender roles...." Read more

"...Like much literary fiction, it is character driven and philosophical point driven...." Read more

"...at the same time, that it just drew me in right away and kept me engaged throughout. Wonderful storytelling, and smart weaving of characters." Read more

"...Some of the passages get weighed down by it. But the story flows well...." Read more

61 customers mention "Readability"55 positive6 negative

Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as an amazing debut novel and a standout piece of literature.

"...later this year 🌻 Run, don’t walk, to pick up a copy of this amazing new book!..." Read more

"...Overall, I found this work very enjoyable, having begun it with no particular expectations and little knowledge of the storyline...." Read more

"...One of the best books that I have read in a while...." Read more

"'Martyr!' is a fine, easy enough read. I did not mind the jumping around of time and characters by chapters have some have...." Read more

52 customers mention "Writing quality"44 positive8 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book, noting its masterfully crafted and multi-layered prose with lyrical beauty and depth.

"...Martyr! illustrates the power and the insufficiency of language, the way it can both elucidate and obscure...." Read more

"...The vocal narration was outstanding...." Read more

"...One of the best books that I have read in a while. A strong voice, poetic and clear at the same time, that it just drew me in right away..." Read more

"'Martyr!' is a fine, easy enough read. I did not mind the jumping around of time and characters by chapters have some have...." Read more

15 customers mention "Character development"12 positive3 negative

Customers appreciate the character development in the book, with one mentioning the use of first and third person perspectives for Cyrus.

"...mother, his father, and his uncle, this book becomes both a captivating character study and a heart-rending family saga...." Read more

"...Like much literary fiction, it is character driven and philosophical point driven...." Read more

"...Wonderful storytelling, and smart weaving of characters." Read more

"The characters were full of thoughts and everyday prose, but they were engaging...." Read more

14 customers mention "Art style"14 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the artistic style of the book, with one noting its vivid imagery and another highlighting its beautiful polysexual and sapphic representation.

"...Thank you, Kaveh, for such beautiful polysexual and sapphic representation and for everything I learned about Persian culture...." Read more

"...The last 3rd of the book absolutely floored me, it was art & it genuinely touched my spirit...." Read more

"Beautiful page turner. Highly recommend reading." Read more

"...I loved the different povs and juxtapositions of characters. Both artistic and human." Read more

10 customers mention "Heartbreakingness"10 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's emotional depth, describing it as heartbreaking and heartmending, with one customer noting it is not pretentious or overly philosophical.

"...Beyond the prose, Akbar’s fiction debut tackles a wide range of topics: grief, racism, sexuality, family dynamics, Persian culture, gender roles...." Read more

"...is a profound exploration of identity, grief, and the search for meaning...." Read more

"...But Akbar's mastery is that he does not get pretentious or overly philosophical...." Read more

"...It'll make you think, weep and be grateful." Read more

6 customers mention "Love"6 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's love themes, with one noting its intimate nature and another highlighting its exploration of sexuality.

"...Akbar’s fiction debut tackles a wide range of topics: grief, racism, sexuality, family dynamics, Persian culture, gender roles. Martyr!..." Read more

"Beautifully written. Poetic. Deeply truthful. Pain, love, loss, doubt- life…" Read more

"There are so many themes here – immigrant, addict, sexuality, loss, death, martyrdom , and all done extremely well...." Read more

"Such an intimate and deep examination on what it means to be alive in the midst of life’s chaos and dissatisfaction...." Read more

7 customers mention "Narrative quality"3 positive4 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the narrative quality of the book, with several noting that it falls short of being convincing and the ending feels underwhelming.

"...It got a bit far-fetched toward the end, but overall, a great read." Read more

"...The story and organization of chapters provide a many layered journey which, for me needs some right to integrate...." Read more

"...Like the title says, ending felt underwhelming, but still an enjoyable read." Read more

"This is an amazing book. The author takes so many turns and addresses multiple issues. It is a difficult book to describe...." Read more

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Ailey O'Toole
I read my top read of 2024 in January - oops!
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2024
Verified Purchase

“I want to be worthy of the great terror my existence inspires.”

This book left me absolutely breathless. 72 hours after finishing it, I’m still suffering from the hangover of how much I loved it. Martyr! follows Cyrus, a yet-to-be-discovered Iranian American poet, as he tries to make sense of his life and his grief. His mother is dead, his father is dead, he’s stuck in a job as a medical actor, and now that he’s sober, he can’t use substances to take the edge off. He’s starting to wonder whether joy is even real anymore when he’s struck by his next great idea: he’ll write a book about martyrs. As he begins searching the world for examples, a friend tells him about a museum exhibit: an Iranian woman, dying of cancer, spending her last days in the museum, talking to people. And thus begins Cyrus’s search for meaning.

Being familiar with Akbar’s poetry, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into when I cracked this book open. The goosebumps that peppered my arms and tears that crawled down my face while I was reading would suggest otherwise. Akbar’s lyricism effortlessly echoes through every line of this book. Martyr! illustrates the power and the insufficiency of language, the way it can both elucidate and obscure. Beyond the prose, Akbar’s fiction debut tackles a wide range of topics: grief, racism, sexuality, family dynamics, Persian culture, gender roles. Martyr!’s characters leap off the page as Akbar employs them to explore these diverse subjects. With alternating POVs between Cyrus, his mother, his father, and his uncle, this book becomes both a captivating character study and a heart-rending family saga.

This is another must-read recommendation for my diverse lit-fic lovers! Thank you, Kaveh, for such beautiful polysexual and sapphic representation and for everything I learned about Persian culture. I’m already planning to reread Martyr! later this year 🌻 Run, don’t walk, to pick up a copy of this amazing new book!

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VeeayemShopper
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Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2024
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I will dispense with describing the plot of Martyr! - that's been done enough in other reviews and the novel's publicity communications. To get directly to its net effect...

Overall, I found this work very enjoyable, having begun it with no particular expectations and little knowledge of the storyline. HOWEVER, I consumed it as an AUDIOBOOK. Throughout its 10+ hours I wondered if it would be as compelling if I were reading it - indeed, I suspected that certain parts might be outright boring in script form. From what I am seeing in other reviews, I believe those wonderings are borne out. The vocal narration was outstanding. Crucially, it took care of what appears to be the most frequent criticism of the book's multiple POV structure: that, in script, all the characters sounded alike. Narrator Arian Moyayed did a remarkable job of bringing the various players to life and imparting unique personalities/voices to each. To those who rated Martyr! one or two stars, I'd say, well, horses for courses. To the three star raters, I'd say you should have listened to the audio - it might have hit you as a four, or maybe even five.

As for other critique points...One, be alerted that Martyr! does not really have a "plot" as such. Like much literary fiction, it is character driven and philosophical point driven. Two, in a couple instances, the "point" being made has little or nothing to do with what is otherwise happening with the main character's life - and it gets a bit soap-boxy. Three, readers/listeners might detect an interesting compare/contrast between the narrative of this protagonist's substance addiction experiences and those of the protagonist in Barabara Kingsolver's "Demon Copperhead". Lastly, I've seen that some folks expected more humor based on the book's promotion; I saw none of that promotion so I didn't expect it, and for me the amount of humor was just right.

As with all books, this one has its flaws. But if you are a literary fiction fan this is a very good book. I would speculatively rate it a solid three-stars in its written form, and highly recommend it in audio.

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34 people found this helpful

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Blown Away
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2025
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I usually don’t write reviews, but this book was so beautifully written and deeply moving. One of the best books that I have read in a while.

A strong voice, poetic and clear at the same time, that it just drew me in right away and kept me engaged throughout. Wonderful storytelling, and smart weaving of characters.

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4 people found this helpful

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Not enough Cyrus, too much of everybody else.
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2025
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I want to start out by saying that I really like the main character, Cyrus. He's a bitter, cynical alcoholic who is "sober" but still miserable. If you've been in the rooms, then his brand of dark humor will be right up your alley.

The problem comes when the book loses him as the focus. There are chapters written from his mother's perspective, his father's, his uncle's. Then there are the dream sequence chapters filled with random famous people. And I don't mean a few chapters, but MULTIPLE! My guess is that Cyrus makes up maybe 60% of the book. These secondary and tertiary characters aren't as well-written nor distinctive.

Around the last quarter of the book, it shifts and gives some justification for all the tangents. But I think the effect would've had more weight if each character would've been given one chapter each.

I'm not mad I read the book but after a while, I felt like I was just trying to finish it, rather than enjoying it. With that said, there were many parts I liked and I wish the editor would've cut more.

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10 people found this helpful

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Ananta
Perfect condition
Reviewed in India on November 2, 2024
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Came in perfect condition. Love the book

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Tag
A good read but lacking in structure and flow.
Reviewed in Spain on December 26, 2024
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A good read but lacking in structure and flow. Seems like it could have used many more pages to fully involve the characters. Wonderful moments though in the book and shows incredible promise the author.

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Amazon Customer
Livro incrível
Reviewed in Brazil on October 3, 2024
Verified Purchase
Com esse dólar ficou caro comprar livros importados mesmo com a logística da Amazon. Mas o livro é muito bom se quiser uma opção mais em conta compra a versão Kindle ou espere baixar o preço quando vierem volumes maiores ou o dólar tiver uma baixa mais relevante

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Caitlin
Martyr!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 30, 2025
Verified Purchase
Where does all our effort go? It's hard not to envy the monsters when you see how good they have it. And how unbothered they are at being monsters."

I didn't know anything about Martyr going in, except for the fact a lot of my favourite booktubers loved it and the cover was bright yellow. Cyrus is such an interesting character and he pulled me into his whirlwind of a life straight away. Akbar's writing style and prose hooked me in straight away. Vivid and witty and very 'real'.

"We can't grow old together, Cyrus. But can't you feel this mattering?"

The explorations of death and grief are fascinating - I've been looking for a book like this for a while that doesn't shy away from tackling the difficult conversations head on. I love the conflicting views between Eastern and Western attitudes on death, the conversations and thoughts on identity, how this ties into death, legacy and inheritance. Some big themes on their own, but Akbar intertwines them masterfully. Who are we in life and who are we in death? Does it change? And if we have a meaningless death, does that mean our life was also meaningless? But does that matter? But what does it mean to matter?

What does it mean to be alive?

"But nobody ever brought up the wages of virtue. The toll of trying really really hard to be good in a game that's totally rigged against goodness."

The plot is so fluid, as is it's the structure, that it's hard to put into words what this story is about and do it justice. I ended up loving all the characters, despite their faults. Their triumphs and their tragedies and all the things in-between. I can't wait to go back and read this again.

"How had be been so oblivious? Love was a room that appeared when you stepped into it."

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Joserra Ortiz
Excelente
Reviewed in Mexico on December 10, 2024
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Excelente

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5.0 out of 5 stars I read my top read of 2024 in January - oops!

4.0 out of 5 stars Choose your media wisely

5.0 out of 5 stars Blown Away

3.0 out of 5 stars Not enough Cyrus, too much of everybody else.

Top reviews from other countries

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect condition

3.0 out of 5 stars A good read but lacking in structure and flow.

5.0 out of 5 stars Livro incrível

5.0 out of 5 stars Martyr!

5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente

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I read my top read of 2024 in January - oops!

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Blown Away

Not enough Cyrus, too much of everybody else.

Perfect condition

A good read but lacking in structure and flow.

Livro incrível

Martyr!

Excelente