Martyr! by Kaveh AkbarMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Martyr! is what fiction strives to be. Iranian-American Cyrus Shams is an addict in recovery, writing a never-ending poetry collection about martyrs, desperate for a death to give his life meaning. On a whim, he decides to visit an artist who has turned her dying into performance, and in doing so begins to unfold the tucked-in corners of his life. A mother erroneously shot down by US airstrikes. A father who did the best he could. A roommate who might be more. The prose is playful and profound, bold and unafraid to bend reality to the narrative's will, teeming with absolute truth ("...after he got sober, when poetry became a place to put his body"). In Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar has written a masterpiece, a book that will reverberate with readers long after the last page.
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