Plot
Cyrus is an angst-ridden son of an Iranian migrant worker who works on a factory chicken farm in rural Indiana. His mother dies in an air disaster that occurred when an American missile accidentally shot down an Iranian plane that was shot down during the Iran–Iraq War. Cyrus is a bisexual recovering alcoholic who is addicted to pharmaceuticals. Throughout the course of the book, we learn about Cyrus's uncle who was in the Iran–Iraq War and suffers from PTSD. He also recounts stories about his parents' childhood and formative years in Iran. Cyrus also has a series of relationships that includes one with his roommate Zee.
Cyrus visits a Marina Abramović–like artist at the Brooklyn Museum of Art who is staging a performance art piece about her experiencing the final stages of her terminal cancer. The artist tells Cyrus a story that is incredibly familiar, a tale that similar to one that only he knows from his personal history. Upon the artist's death, Cyrus discovers his connection to her, a deep connection that explains his past and perhaps, even his trauma.
Reception
The New Yorker applauded it: "Akbar's writing has the musculature of poetry that can't rely on narrative propulsion and so propels itself." [7] The Boston Globe wrote that it is "stuffed with ideas, gorgeous images, and a surprising amount of humor". [8]
Writing in The New York Times Book Review , Junot Díaz called it "incandescent" and its main character Cyrus Shams "an indelible protagonist, haunted, searching, utterly magnetic". [9]
At The New York Review of Books , Francine Prose noted: [10]
There's something immensely appealing about a meticulously written novel whose characters (Cyrus isn't the only one) are busily searching for meaning. It's a pleasure to read a book in which an obsession with the metaphysical, the spiritual, and the ethical is neither a joke nor an occasion for a sermon. And it's cheering to see a first-time (or anytime) novelist go for the heavy stuff—family, death, love, addiction, art, history, poetry, redemption, sex, friendship, US-Iranian relations, God—and manage to make it engrossing, imaginative, and funny.
Sarah Cypher of The Washington Post praised the reading experience as "a delight" and called the novel "wonderfully strange". [11]
In September 2024 Martyr! was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction. [12] In October 2024, the novel was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction. [13] [14]
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