Review of ​Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

​Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar is a novel following the recovery of an addict, Cyrus Shams, and his desire to make himself a martyr. After his mother dies in a plane shot down by US forces, Cyrus and his father, Ali, move to America to try and leave their grief behind. Ali gets a job at a chicken farm cleaning eggs and tries to support Cyrus until he goes to college. Cyrus attends Keady University where he meets Zee, a soon to be friend/lover, where they start doing drugs, at one point nearly chopping Cyrus’s toe off while high with an axe for a voyeuristic man. However, Cyrus begins to spiral into addiction where he finds himself finally crawling out of with the help of his sponsor, Gabe. While two years sober at an open mic, and attempting to write his book on martyrs, one of their friends suggests Cyrus travel to New York City from Indiana to meet an artist. The artist, Orkideh, is doing her final show, ‘Death-Speak’, in which she sits and converses with visitors on death as she will be dying from cancer soon. Cyrus can see it as a huge part of his book and so enlists the help of Zee to join him in New York for the weekend. While at the museum, Orkideh and Cyrus meet and begin to have a conversation over the next few days about death, martyrdom, other visitors, and addiction. On one of the nights, Zee and Cyrus have a large argument about how Cyrus sees Zee’s life amounting to nothing while he is trying to make something of his death. The following day, Cyrus goes to the exhibit, though finds Orkideh had taken pills and died the night before. Then, after fainting and recovering, Cyrus gets a phone call from the curator needing to discuss Orkideh, where it is eventually revealed that Orkideh is Cyrus’s mother. The curator and Cyrus meet at the park, where she describes what happened to his mother, that her lover got on the plane instead of her, how she fled to America after, and how she built her life as an artist. Afterward, Zee calls Cyrus where they meet at the park. Though, this time Cyrus can see how selfish he was dragging Zee along, not only to New York, but how terrible of a friend he is. The novel ends in a surrealist moment where the city is morphing and changing around them after all the death and the truths that had been revealed.
 
Along with the main narrative, Akbar weaves moments of Cyrus’s mother’s past into the story as well as dream sequences of famous people talking to people Cyrus knows. Also spread throughout are draft excerpts of Cyrus’s book about martyrs. It’s a really engaging, passionate, and intensely visual novel about addiction, recovery, and friendships. I was deeply moved by the conversations Cyrus has with Orkideh and astounded at the way Akbar pulled in references to religion and the philosophical nature of the inner thoughts of the characters. I also found it especially powerful when a story that is recounted about a man serving two military drafts (one for his dead brother and one for himself) parallels with how Orkideh’s lover dies and she must take her identity in the beginning to continue her life in America. A truly awe-inspiring novel.
 
Final Rating: 5/5