The main character of Martyr! is Cyrus Shams, a thirty year old Iranian American living in a small university town in Indiana. Cyrus is an alcoholic, a drug abuser, and a poet, and he is obsessed with martyrdom. More precisely, he wants to know how to have a good death, a death that means something. This quest is rooted in his past and his family tragedies, but his search for enlightenment will propel him foreword into startling territory.  Cyrus Shams was born in Iran in […]