Martyr!

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ΓÇó SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD ΓÇó A newly sober,orphaned son of Iranian immigrantsguided by the voices of artistspoetsand kingsembarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifyingfunnyand wholly originalMartyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK ΓÇó A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR ΓÇ£Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇöTommy OrangePulitzer PrizeΓÇônominated author of There There ΓÇ£The best novel you’ll ever read about the joy of languageaddictiondisplacementmartyrdombelonginghomesickness.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇöLauren Groffbest-selling author of Matrix and Fates and Furies Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his motherΓÇÖs plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his fatherΓÇÖs life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunkan addictand a poetwhose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his pastΓÇötoward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dyingand toward his motherthrough a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed. Kaveh AkbarΓÇÖs Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaningΓÇöin faithartourselvesothers.