Review: MARTYR! (+Book Club Discussion Questions)

Title: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar 

Book Beginnings quote:

Friday56 quote:

Summary:

Martyr! follows Cyrus Shams, a young man born in Persia who was brought to the United States by his father when he was a baby. Cyrus, who lost his mother soon after birth when the plane she was on was accidentally shot down over the Persian Gulf on its way to Dubai, has struggled with depression, insomnia, and addiction his whole life. He has also been haunted by the death of his mother and forced to cope with his father's death, too, as well as racism — and feelings of grief, uselessness, and alienation. Cyrus is a poet, and his obsession with death and martyrs forces him to delve deep into what it means to die, his family's history, the lives of several historical figures (NPR).

Review: From the summary one would think, possibly rightly, that Martyr! is too dark of a book to tackle during these dark times. But what the summary doesn't say is how surprisingly funny the book is at times and ultimately how we all want the same thing -- for our life to matter.

Cyrus is a depressed young man who by young adulthood has lost both his parents and is living in a country, the United States, where he is outsider and has to constantly cope with otherness. Yet there is an almost pathological politeness to his life, an "intersection of Iranian-ness and Midwestern-ness" which forces him to put up with awful racist comments and to constantly perform "an elaborate and almost entirely unspoken choreography of etiquette" that Iranians call taarof.

Martyr! is told from the point-of-view of several different narrators. The most prominent of the narrators is Cyrus --who talks about his past, his relationships, his addictions, and his fascinations with martyrs -- but there are chapters narrated by his mother, his father, a friends, and his uncle -- who played a role during the Iranian-Iraqi war, riding a horse, pretending to be an angel, reminding soldiers that their deaths won't be in vain that they will be martyrs for the cause. The book's plot is so multi-layered and cast of characters all so three-dimensional it practically sparkled with life and energy. Martyr! was one of the top books of 2024 for good reasons:

It celebrates language while delving deep into human darkness. It entertains while jumping around in time and space and between the real and the surreal like a fever dream. It brilliantly explores addiction, grief, guilt, sexuality, racism, martyrdom, biculturalism, the compulsion to create something that matters, and our endless quest for purpose in a world that can often be cruel and uncaring (NPR).

I loved the book but knew going to my book club meeting I would likely be in a minority. I was right. No one else liked the book but me. This is what Greg at "Supposedly Fun" calls a "cilantro book" -- you hate it or love it. (I often wonder if my experience with the audiobook enhanced my reading pleasure. I was the only one who listened to the book rather than reading the print version.) I appreciated Akbar's poetic writing, the dream-sequences -- which were the funniest parts to me--, the interrelated stories, and the touch of magical realism. Others couldn't stand the book. They felt the main character, Cyrus, was too awful and obsessed with death to feel any empathy for him. One gal had done some reading online and discovered that others think the ending was actually about Cyrus's death. Whereas I think the ending is about Cyrus waking up to love and a new life. It sparkled brightly in the most fantastical manner. I was blown away by it. 

My rating: 5 stars.

Martyr! Book Club Discussion Questions

(Help yourself. If you haven't read the book, there are spoilers in some of the questions!)

1. Reviewers are in agreement that Martyr! is a polarizing book. What did you like/not like about the book?

2. Martyr! is the first book I remember that has an exclamation mark after the title. Why do you think the author/publisher added it? How does its presence inform the reader about the theme?

3. Talk about martyrdom in Iranian culture and literature. Is this still being played out today?

4. Cyrus's mother dies in a a plane crash before he was old enough to remember her. In what ways was this event the central event of his life? How could his father have handled things differently?

5. One of the prominent themes of Martyr! is grief. How was grief played out in the different characters lives? Do you think there is such a thing as generational grief? If so, how was it manifested in the story?

6. What are your thoughts on each of the main characters: Cyrus Shams, Ali Shams, Roya Shams/Orkideh, Zee, Cyrus's uncle. Here are some questions to get the discussion rolling if your group needs a prompt:

• Explain Cyrus's fascination with martyrdom and with making his life amount to something.
• Why did Ali move his young son to America, after what happened with Roya's plane be shot out of the sky? How could he stand working on the egg farm for so long?
• Why do you think Roya left her young son to run off with Layla? How did she feel about motherhood?
• Cyrus's uncle played the role of an angel sent to bolster the lives of dying soldiers. How did this impact him? Why would a military assign such a role to a soldier?
• Zee seemed like the most content character in the book. What did you think of him? How did you feel about his and Cyrus's relationship?

7. Talk about Cyrus's addiction and his recovery. What did you think about his relationship with his AA sponsor Gabe?  

8. What did you think about Orkideh sitting in an art museum as she was dying from breast cancer? Why do you think she ended her life before revealing who she was to Cyrus? Were you surprised by the revelation?

9. Share a favorite quote or react to those I've provided. Search for more quotes here:

• “The only people who speak in certainties are zealots and tyrants.”
• “Do you have this organ here?” Cyrus asked her, pointing at the base of his throat. “A doom organ that just pulses all the time? Pulses dread, every day, obstinately? Like it thinks there’s a panther behind the curtain ready to maul you, but there’s no panther and it turns out there’s no curtain either? That’s what I wanted to stop.”
• “Love was a room that appeared when you stepped into it.”

10. Process the ending together. What do you think happened?

11. Martyr! was on a lot of the 2024 Best Books lists this past year. It was a finalists for the National Book Award for fiction that year. What do you think of the writing? Do you think this book deserves to receive book awards or not?

-Anne