Martyr!
Kaveh Akbar, 2024
352 pages
Read in 2026.07
Check the synopsis and details on amazon.com
🔽 Summary and quick note 🔽
✔ Iranian American youth in rehab who had lost his mother soon after birth is obsessed with martyrdom.
✔ His search for meaningful deaths leads to an artist who is waiting for her death while exhibiting it
✔ 2 lives in parallel and uncomfortable quest for meaningfulness in mundane life
★★★★★ Strange, beautiful, sad and painful, and poetic. He is determined to search for a meaningful death, unlike that of his mother. 2 lives told in parallel, that of his life in the US, and that of his mother's during the Revolution. Uncomfortable and desperate quest for meaningfulness.
English reviews, ENG_Coming of age, ENG_Family, ENG_Friendship, ENG_History, ENG_Immigration, ENG_LGBTQ, ENG_Politics
🔽 Book review 🔽
The book I had high expectations of, and it went beyond them.
It's strange, beautiful, sad and painful, and poetic.
Cyrus is in recovery from drug and alcohol addictions, being Iranian and poet, and not completely straight, in a countryside, he's a stranger, he belongs nowhere.
As soon as he was born, his mother died a "meaningless death" in an accident that was an error by the US army.
After dedicating his boring life for him in the hateful country that is the US, his father dies.
Now he is obsessed with meaningful deaths, the martyrdom, and the quest leads him to an artist who has weeks to live, who is exhibiting herself as her last art.
But don't we all think about death, and hope that it'll be a meaningful one? Or at least not so meaningless?
It's about his life then you realise it's also about his mother, and how mundane things are not meaningless, and often, they are more complex just as they deserve to be.
We discover two lives in parallel; the life of our Cyrus in the US today, and that of his mother in Iran before and during the Revolution.
His sense of loss and not belonging anywhere; he's a proud Iranian who only knows the American life, he thinks about his mother a lot but he doesn't know her, his flatmate is a good friend who also becomes a lover when convenient.
I don't want to spoil anything, so I'm warning I'm writing about my view about the last 1/5 of the book, without actually mentioning anything, so turn away if you don't want to see.
I think it was a happy ending.
Happiness doesn't have to be about being correct.
It's coming to terms with the incorrect things, incorrect actions in the past, incorrect treatment by people you love, then acknowledging that your loved ones came to terms with them too.
It's not about judgement, or even about forgiveness, it's really about being OK.
Iranian American literature is quietly invading my reading last few months.
The beautiful minds of people who are constantly thinking how they don't belong.
This book had the sharpest blade.
🔽 Related pages 🔽
English reviews, ENG_Coming of age, ENG_Family, ENG_Friendship, ENG_History, ENG_Immigration, ENG_LGBTQ, ENG_Politics
🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽
●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
Martyr! (National Book Award Finalist): A Novel
