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 […]

Cyrus Shams has been adrift for years. Born in Iran, he lost his mother very early when her plane was shot down by mistake by a U.S. Navy warship. (This really happened. Look up Iran Air Flight 655 for more information.) His father took Cyrus to Indiana, of all places, where he worked himself to death on a chicken farm before Cyrus had finished college. In 2017, Cyrus has sobered up and finally graduated, but he’s still hanging around his college town, bumming around at […]