Martyr!

A Novel

By: Kaveh Akbar

Narrated by: Arian Moayed

Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR FOR 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • 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.

©2024 Kaveh Akbar (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“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

“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

One of the best novels I have ever read/heard.

I’m in my seventies. I cannot remember a novel that has moved me more (hyperventiliating after some chapters, crying with others) while simultaneously challenging me with profound and ultimate themes regarding—no joke—the meaning of life and death and art. How Akbar moulded all of this into a novel with drama and surprise and characters to love is beyond my comprehension. The audio narration is perfect.

We live until we die

This book first caught my attention because of the cultural world it created. However, I began to personally relate more to the themes as it continued. The craftsmanship, mix of historical fiction and magic realism kept the story moving and the characters were well rounded. My most lasting takeaways, however, were the existential themes and how to manage being a fully living human until death inevitably comes. I found myself pausing and contemplating quite often while listening to the book. The narration added that special touch of being at a live performance and helped with pronunciation of words not in my vocabulary.

Best contemporary fiction read since Infinite Jest

What an immense pleasure to listen to this book. Truly a treat. A challenge and a joy. 11/10

Searching for meaning and love

The story is very well written and read, but the (author and) protagonist is lost and keeps searching for meaning, without ever finding it. His search for love, along with those of most of the other main characters, is painfully realistic for someone who has been neglected, abandoned, and warped by alcohol, drugs, and despair. The deliberately ambiguous finish is perhaps intended to offer hope, but it represents one more escape into mood altering grasping for something out of reach in the real world. Having said that, perhaps my interpretation is exactly what the author intended for his readers.

Brilliant

Brilliant. Well written, inventive, funny, touching, riveting. The intersecting stories are too numerous to list – it’s about missing parents, martyrdom, art, poetry, exile, drug addition, friends, lovers, life and death. All at the same time. Almost too brilliant for its own good in places. Feels like an editor worked on it for a while then just gave up and said publish it anyway, it is too good no to. It was also incredibly well read. A treat!

It’s good to be alive

Loved the twist but also the language and the misanthropy and the recovery. Beautiful open searching book.

Did not like narrator

I found the narration distracting. Really surprised more people didn’t comment on this in the reviews. Weird inflections - random word emphasis - did not read naturally

SO (!!!) Beauty-Full

Finished listening last night and said to my husband, "This was one of the most beautiful books I've ever read/listened to." Loved so much about it. The tenderness; the floating between "reality" and "surreality"; the language; the stories within stories; the pacing, both deeply satisfying and still not simply fulfilling my expectation, what I wanted to happen; the insights into/reminders of recovery ("the rooms"); the direct relationship to the current moment in the US & beyond - while also giving historical context(s) in and as story; the exploration of art; the characters (Layla and Z being my favorites); and so much more...
And the narrator! I used to live with an Iranian-Canadian woman, and I was catapulted back to being with her when the voices were the female Iranian characters again and again.
I will return to this book before long and cannot recommend it highly enough.

Remarkable

Martyr! is remarkable. Powerful writing that captures that particular existential moment of late youth, when the first whiffs of mortality render everything in life so...consequential. Kaveh Akbar's novel is ambitious and painstakingly crafted. Its dizzying poetic language is used intentionally and precisely to great effect. Philosophy and reverie dominate. His erudite voice is saved from pretentiousness only by its authenticity. And the narration! Arian Moayed's performance is emotional and lush. His voice is luxury cashmere, soft, light, warm, with an earthy goat-iness that climbs through. I can't imagine experiencing this book except through his voice. I fell in love a little. Okay, a lot. Completely surrendered. It was sublime. This one will haunt my heart and mind for a long time. Excellent!

Okay

This did not live up to the hype, in my opinion. I’m glad I read it, because I’d always wonder. Narration was great. The story was just all over the place and I didn’t love any of the characters. Just my thoughts!