Martyr!: A novel | 
In the animal world, a broken leg meant you starved, so a healed femur meant that some human had supported another's long recovery, fed them, cleaned the wound. And thus, the author argued, began civilization. Augured not by an instrument of murder, but by a fracture bound, a bit of food brought back for another.
pickAnd this is why I cannot make my best of list until Jan 1!! I loved this, the writing is wonderfully poetic, I need to buy a copy so I can mark it up, I wanted to highlight so many lines and paragraphs. I loved all of the characters. Cyrus was a mess but he was an endearing mess.
This has been on so many best of lists and it deserves all the praise it is getting. I loved this
#weeklyforecast
I am so close to finishing Martyr! I am loving it, have less than 100 pgs and it was due back yesterday so hoping to finish today.
I am 20% into We Could Be Rats the new Emily Austin and I am not loving it as much as Fact About Space but will push on.
Want to get to Poor DEER bc Empires both are due back this weekend and so many people are waiting!
My audio for my walks is Worst Hard Time by Egan about the American dust bowl
Persian Mirror Art
"I think about this a lot Cyrus. These centuries of Persians trying to copy the Egyptian vanity, really their self reflection. How it arrived to us in shards. How we had to look at ourselves in these broken fragments, and how those mirror tiles found themselves in all these mosques, the tile work, these ornate mosaics. How those spaces made the fractured glimpses of ourselves near sacred."
Akbar has an amazing use of words. The way he lays out and describes Cyrus' descent into alcoholism is heartbreaking, gorgeous and understandable.
"But Cyrus's true love, his bedrock, his soulmate, was alcohol. Alcohol was faithful, omnipresent, predictable. Alcohol didn't demand monogamy like opiates or meth. Alcohol demanded only that you came back home to it at the end of the night."
pickMartyr! is an absolute pleasure to read. Cyrus‘ struggle with his identity and history makes for truly compelling reading 😊
pickI know of KA primarily as a poet: always creative, always interesting, sometimes very moving, sometimes just plain baffling. This book was all of those things by turn. Or all at once.
Cyrus is colossally self-absorbed, but is aware of the fact. I wanted good things to happen for him.
Structurally, I'm not entirely convinced it worked, but KA makes for a dazzling, rhapsodic novelist. I enjoyed his book very much.
pickI‘m going to be thinking about this one because there is a lot to chew on.
Is this a perfect novel? Nope, in fact there are elements I don‘t appreciate and frankly I‘ve read better debut novels. However Kaveh has a very distinctive creative voice that isn‘t forgettable. This won‘t be a spine on the shelf I‘ll wonder whether I‘ve read.
Matchy today! 🙃 Loving this novel, so witty & insightful. Perhaps a bit self indulgent, but forgivable.
Guffawing at the wholly pathological superficial “politeness” of Midwesterners, which apparently is akin to Iranian etiquette, and describing his rich girlfriend as “American Christian, the kind that believed Jesus had just needed a bigger gun.”
"I just think about that a lot. The ugliness of anger. I don't disagree that it can be harnessed. But it's so irredeemably ugly."
"You're a human being, Cyrus," Sang said, gently. "So was your mother. So am I. Not cartoon characters. There's no pressure for us to be ethically pure, noble. Or, God forbid, aspirational. We're people. We get mad, we get cowardly. Ugly. We self-obsess."
"Can you imagine just losing access to all the art that you most loved, to all the stuff that gave your living purpose? Purpose and fluency? ..... "Imagine all that stuff disappearing," Kareem continued "Literally going up in smoke...."
"Then imagine," Kareem said, "that a bunch of people who'd never met you, for whom you're just a myth, began sending you the art you loved.... Imagine how that might contribute to your sense of amongness.
Addiction is an old country song: you lose the dog, lose the truck, lose the high school sweetheart.
In recovery you play the song backward, and that's where things get interesting. Where'd you find the truck? Did the dog remember you? What'd your sweetheart say when they saw you again
He wanted to be on the right side of history, whatever that Was. But more than that (he admitted this to himself when he was practicing being rigorously honest), he wanted other people to perceive him as someone who cared about being on the right side of history.
pickCyrus is a young man who was born in Iran but grew up in the United States. He is a poet, an orphan, a recovering addict, and has a consuming fascination with death and martyrdom. And while that seems a potentially depressing read, it is surprisingly freeing to see how Akbar addresses so many heavy issues in engaging and enlightening ways. Akbar‘s prose is just exquisite; so many passages just left me dazzled. Such unique, affecting storytelling.
President Invective! ? No need to know in what year this is set in order to figure out who the President is.
"The sort of man whose unwavering assertions of his own genius competence had, to the American public, apparently overwhelmed all observable evidence to the contrary."
pickDeftly written, brilliantly plotted, tenderly wrought.
Don‘t ya love a book that puts your heart through a wringer and confuses you, challenges you, makes you trust the journey anyway, then delivers with a sweet tug?
#Book58_2024 #NoIdeaWhyIReadThisNow #JoslynCastleOmNE
Library holds came in. I'm very excited to read all of these, but slightly inconvenienced that none of them are on the Booker longlist 😆 Another busy reading month ahead, clearly.
“… can‘t you feel this mattering? Right now?”
It matters to me. Know that. It matters deeply.”
Copper finally working with me as photographer 🤣😎📸🐶❤️📚 Just starting this and I know absolutely nothing. Don‘t tell me!
#DogsofLitsy #CopperBopper #WirehairedPointingGriffon #whpg #Griff4short #librarybook #hardcover
pickCyrus, newly sober, is trying to find a reason to live and decides to write a book about martyrs. He is numb. He is depressed. His mother was killed when her plane was blown up by the US. His father died as soon as Cyrus went to college, having completed his fatherly tasks. His uncle was a death angel who rode a horse among dying men in the Iran war. And then he meets a dying artist who is sitting in a museum as she dies. These characters 🔽
pickThis wasn‘t as strong a pick for me as it was for some Littens. I liked Cyrus‘ evolution, but the dream sequences got annoying.
Iranian Cyrus‘ mother‘s plane was accidentally shot down by a US battleship when he was a baby. He and his father immigrate to Indiana where he lives as a typical kid. Newly orphaned, sober, and suicidal in his 20s, he begins to explore and write a book about martyrdom. Yes, it‘s pretty heavy.
pickWow, wow, and more WOW! Not since Decima by Venter Even or Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner have I been so gripped by a novel and protagonist! This book is amazing! Found myself re reading chapters to enjoy the prose again!
I keep thinking about this quote.
pickCyrus is born in Iran but after his mother dies in a plane crash he and his father move to the US.
He beats alcoholism but life in sobriety still is challenging. Until he comes up with the idea to write a book about martyrdom. That changes everything.
The style reminded me a bit of Rushdie and I grew really fond of Cyrus. #CampToB
I‘m only on page 22 and I already love this book. The main character is talking about life after you stop drinking and yowzer I am with him on this one.
Is life better without alcohol? Well….yes. But life sure is different and sometimes I wonder if it‘s worth going without.
It‘s been almost 15 years since I had alcohol and I‘m definitely not as joyful and I‘m also definitely not as depressed. So there‘s that. 🙂
pickThe audio version of this one is narrated so well. It took a while for the plot and story to come around for me, but when the pieces started to finally come together, I can see why so many literary folks adore this
#WeeklyForecast 28/24
I am starting The Alternatives for #CampLitsy24 because I‘ve got a borrowed copy. Thirst for Salt is a gift by Cindy and seems totally in my wheelhouse. Martyr! is a #CampToB book and has had such raving reviews on Litsy that I had to add it to my TBR.
pickOn the face of it, the blurb of this book made me think I wouldn‘t like it, but I was also weirdly drawn to it. I thought, as it‘s a library book, I could bail (me, bail?! Ha!) but I ended up loving it.
The MC, Cyrus, is a recovering alcoholic who decides to write a book about martyrs and spends time talking to an artist whose last installation is her dying days in the Brooklyn Museum. I loved Cyrus, despite and because of all his weirdness. ❤️
I think the description of this book‘s contents made it sound like there was a lot going on or that it would be more experimental but that was not the case: so far each of the stories told are these raw human stories and all of them are so compelling and vividly painted I am fully immersed. The prose is perfect- it‘s both beautiful (you can tell the author is a poet) but also not over done.
pickThis novel is wonderful. One flawed character that tells the story, with different characters‘ POVs to round out the gaps in perspectives and time. It‘s funny, sad, engaging, and cringey. Fantastic.
pickWhat a strange and beautiful novel! I found this to be a challenging read, I read it in audio format with an A++++ narration by Arian Moayed. Intensely readable, with characters that are easy to love. This was outside my usual reading comfort zone, I‘m so glad to have not passed this one up, I just loved it. 💜
pickLove this novel about recovery from addiction, trying to find your place in the world, and choosing life. It is entertaining and surprising. Loved the audio book. Highly recommend. 4 🌟
pickFamily, siblings, deathdrive, dreams. Shifting 1st person POV centered on orphaned Iranian-American poet Cyrus Shams. Obsession with martyrdom and “a death that matters” masking a search for meaning and “goodness.” Open and heartfelt. Saw the twist coming, but it still did its work. 2024
10 “Cyrus didn‘t write so much as he drank about writing”
114 “It‘s possible, he thought, that the experience of gratitude was itself a luxury”
pickFantastic! What an exciting voice! Really enjoyed his immigrant perspective and the unforeseen plot twist. Appreciated the happy ending :)
pickThis was an incredible listen. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, and the narration for this is audiobook was spot on. #bookspinbingo #bingo
pick11 hours flew by #audiostitching to this unputdownable tale of an orphan poet obsessed with having a meaningful death after losing his mother in a planet crash when he was an infant.
pickI started this ebook from NetGalley a bit ago and it absolutely grabbed me! I finished all other books to focus solely on this because it deserves to have a reader‘s full attention. This book is bizarre, sad, triumphant…about death, love, loss, art, family, identity, nationality and ultimately finding one‘s purpose. I laughed and I had tears in my eyes from one moment to the next. Cyrus will remain with me for some time, as will his musings.
so-soThis one is getting raves, so this will be an #unpopularopinion. The book follows Cyrus, an Iranian-American who is determined for his life to mean something by dying a martyr. Early in the book, he came across to me as overly 20-something naval gazey, making it hard for me to connect with him. Then the ending hinges on a plot choice that just did not work for me. Some parts of the story are quite compelling.
pickThis is one of those book…your emotions, your whole being is living with the story. On top of that, when a poet writes prose it‘s a gift. Trust me, read it!
pickCultural examination is viewed through protagonist Cyrus Shams, a recovering addict and alcoholic. As he researches the meaning of martyrdom, he makes connections with his own family, Muslim refugees that made selfless sacrifices for him in order to have a better life. As he digs deeper, he realizes the meaning of history, identity, perseverance, heritage, family, queerness, and the real meaning of being a martyr.
