Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Why does a book title have an exclamation mark? I kind of get the feeling every time I pick this book up as if the title is trying to spring up at me from the cover. Like a sudden idea that occurred to someone; a Eureka! moment. I have stared at the title long and hard and thought about it a fair few times during the course of my reading this, and have finally settled on the explanation that the exclamation is to jolt one out of everyday living. I think that that is probably what Cyrus Shams, the protagonist, likely felt during the unfolding of the events of the book. To be completely honest with you, I started this book with a gut feeling that I wouldn't like it. It's not that I judged it by its cover (which in fact is disturbingly fluorescent and unattractive) or even that I read disgruntled reviews, but more than anything, just a strange sort of vibe I got from the opening pages of petulant drug abuse. That's surely why it took almost a year since I got this book, for ...