Family, 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”