What to expect when you’re expecting (to go out with a bang)

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

There’s an inherent issue for any author who boldly proclaims their entry into the novel form with a literal exclamation point and a one word title like Martyr!

The Bible got there first.

As far as the Western historical understanding of who or what constitutes a martyr, the record most often points back to the annals of the Book of All Books. Jesus started it (Abraham and Isaac got their digs in earlier, technically), early Christians picked up the slack by dying in their multitudes before they hit the Roman Empire with a reverse UNO card, and then it was off to the races.

Of course, martyrdom is not the sole domain of the religious. People ceaselessly kill others for their causes, beliefs, and moral codes, so why should Rome, Mecca, and Jerusalem get all the glory? Still, even a malleable term like martyr carries the weight of its original thrust. Your willingness to give your life to your chosen faith is a common definition – dying is also a common byproduct.

It is against this tide that Kaveh Akbar swims with Martyr!, his debut novel. The story of Cyrus Shams, an Iranian-American, Midwesterner, wannabe poet, recovering alcoholic/drug addict, orphan, etc. is uneven. He is in no sense a likable figure; he is painfully obsessed with discovering a way to die a death with meaning. In Akbar’s telling, this desire dominates almost every thought that crosses Cyrus’s mind to the detriment of his friends and remaining family members. Cyrus inhabits the border between born-again and depressive—acknowledging that he has lived longer than his previous addiction would’ve merited while seeking a way to die a valuable death in the near-future anyways.

In its bones there is a great novel waiting to be written here. Martyr! is not that. But it isn’t a total waste, either. Its premise and general theme is strong enough (read: bashed over your head enough) to merit more thought. Rather than start with a life guided by a faith, Cyrus works his way backwards: seek the worthwhile exit first, sort out the details leading up to it later. This an interesting inversion of the formula, an opening of the horizon of understanding if tackled thoughtfully. Unfortunately, Cyrus never really pulls it off in a convincing fashion, and a book written largely from his perspective (or, at least, in his narrative tone) suffers for this.

Still, it will get you thinking. Who is a martyr today? Within the confines of Martyr! it can be argued that those around Cyrus, supporting him in spite of his destructive tendencies, achieve a certain sort of contemporary martyrdom. There is Cyrus’s father Ali, uprooted from Iran and waking at 4:30 AM every day to work in an industrial chicken farm; he succumbs to alcoholism of his own to cope with the rigors of providing enough for his son to make it to adulthood on his own two feet. Arash, Cyrus’s uncle, was drafted and put through the human meat grinder of war, serving as a costumed “Angel of Death” sent onto bloodied battlefields to strengthen the resolve of the dying while offering them no material comfort. Finally, we’ve Zee, Cyrus’s friend and on-again, off-again romantic interest who dedicates much of his being to the idea and actuality of Cyrus; faith in a friend who rarely repays the favor.

A martyr to parenthood. A martyr to society’s demands. A martyr to a selfish lover. All three punished by forces external to themselves, either ground to dust or well on their way. Did Cyrus miss the point, then? Or are there so many martyrs among us that martyrdom is almost mundane—necessitating something more grand at the end to stand out after all? The book never tackles things like these head on, but I’m glad it opened up that door in my mind.

Whether reading 300+ pages of varying quality in the hope of finding your own kind of inspiration is another question entirely.