Kaveh Akbar’s novel Martyr! will stay with me for a long time, I think. It is as flinty as it is lush; austere and cold and wildly warm. Akbar’s main character, Cyrus, is an orphaned man, recovering alcoholic, poet, and perpetual seeker of meaning. He veers wildly between belief and emptiness, the terror of living and his insatiable need to feel its purpose. Although Cyrus is the protagonist, the book’s chapters are a whirlwind of other perspectives and time frames: Cyrus’s Iranian mother–killed when her flight was shot down by the U.S. in a case of mistaken identity–his father, who moved Cyrus and himself to the United States afterwards; his best friend, Zee; an artist named Orkideh; and dream conversations between real people and fictional characters, ranging from Rumi to Lisa Simpson. As the reader gets deeper into the novel, the story itself has the beauty, terror, and the impressionistic language of dreams themselves.
In the most simple terms, the story revolves around Cyrus and his desire to both excavate the stories of martyrs–historical and in his life–and write a book about them, in poetry and prose. He also is suicidal and hoping to give his life meaning before he gives up on it. He is intense and always searching for the language to truly encapsulate his feelings and thoughts, but usually feeling frustrated by the attempt. He takes a journey from Indiana with his friend Zee to NYC to meet Orikdeh, an artist who is staging a performance piece in the Brooklyn museum where she speaks with visitors as she reaches the end of her life due to breast cancer. Her exhibit is called “DEATH-SPEAK.” Cyrus’s experiences in NY and with Orikdeh and others take up a lot of the book, but the chapters switch perspectives and time, as I mentioned, so the reader is immersed in many different stories.
I had an interesting experience reading this book. I connected very quickly to Cyrus, due to my own experiences and qualities. I am a writer, like him, and recovered from addiction. I intensely related to Cyrus’s view of recovery: “Because [certain actions] feels different than nothing. Which is all sobriety is. Nothing. Nothing in every direction. It used to be I’d only feel something if it was the most extreme ecstasy or the most incapacitating white-light pain. Drugs and booze sandpapered away everything else. But now everything is the textureless middle.” And there were so many beautiful lines, like: “It’s possible, he thought, that the experience of gratitude was itself a luxury, a topless convertible driven through a rainless life.”
As absorbed as I was, I felt this odd resistance to the author, and in turn to Cyrus himself. Akbar, like his main character, writes with his heart on his sleeve. There is an intensity of writing that made me almost suspicious, like I was being manipulated into feeling intensely myself. It was a little overwhelming, almost too poetic and philosophic. But as I read on, I saw how brilliantly everything was weaved together, how heartfelt and honest the characters were, how Cyrus’s search for meaning resonated on a larger plain. Akbar writes generously and with his own striving towards meaning. In the last few pages I was surprised to notice I was tearing up. The ending really touched a chord inside me.
Finally, there’s something I love about the title of the book: Martyr, with an exclamation point. Without the exclamation point, it reads as a bit self-serious, solemn and pregnant with meaning. But that exclamation point embodies so much: the novel’s humor, pathos, insistence, and larger than life presence. Truly a wonderful book I would recommend unreservedly.