First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

Ever since his mother’s plane was senselessly shot down over the Persian Gulf when he was just a baby, Cyrus has been grappling with her death. Now, newly sober, he is set to learn the truth of her life.

When an encounter with a dying artist leads Cyrus towards the mysteries of his past – an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as an angel of death, a haunting work of art by an exited painter – he finds himself once again caught up in the story of his mother, who may not have been who or what she seemed. As Cyrus searches for meaning in the scattered clues of his life, a final revelation transforms everything he thought he knew.

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

Happy Friday everyone! Yes! We are done with another work week! I hope it was smooth sailing for everyone although it was damp for most of the week here in the Northern part of the Philippines. A typhoon has ravaged Luzon in the past week, leaving most low-lying areas flooded. My thoughts and prayers to everyone who perished and suffered during the typhoon. I am hoping for a quick recovery. On another note, I hope everyone is ending the work week on a high note and that you were able to accomplish all your tasks for the week. Props to everyone for making it through the workweek. It is time to unwind and dive into the weekend! Woah. Today is the last Friday of October. How time flies! In a matter of weeks, we will be welcoming a new year. Before the year ends, I hope your hard work gets recognized and repaid. I hope the remainder of the year will be brimming with good news, blessings, and pleasant surprises. More importantly, I hope everyone will be healthy in body, mind, and spirit.

To cap the blogging week, I am sharing a fresh First Impression Friday update. This weekly meme has become an integral part of my weekly blogging ritual. From a space to figure out my initial feelings about the book I am currently reading, over time, my First Impression Friday updates have turned into springboards for my book reviews. Like September, my October reading journey is a mixed bag. It started as a foray into the works of Nobel Laureates in Literature set into motion by Olga Tokarczuk’s latest novel and South Korean writer Han Kang’s well-deserved recognition this year; Han Kang is the first female Asian writer to be recognized by the Swedish Academy. With four books each, Tokarczuk and Kang are my two most read and reviewed female Nobel laureates in literature. Following this min-foray into the works of Nobel Laureates in Literature, I pivoted toward Booker Prize-shortlisted books. I received my copies of the five books from the shortlist I have yet to read.

After reading two more Booker Prize-shortlisted books – I already read Percival Everett’s James – I decided to take a break and take a different route. I am currently reading Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel, Martyr! Before this year, I had never heard of Kaveh Akbar until I searched for books to include in my 2024 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List. His debut novel – he wrote poetry first before pivoting to prose – seems highly anticipated. Martyr! was a familiar presence in several most anticipated 2024 book releases lists. It was a no-brainer for me to include it in my own. I thought I wouldn’t be able to acquire a copy of the book but thankfully, I was able to source a bookseller. Martyr! is then the eighth book in my 2024 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List that I read. I hope I get to obtain the last two books on my list because I have never succeeded in this reading challenge.

Anyway, the heart of Martyr! is Cyrus Shams, a young man in his early twenties living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. When we first met him, he was recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction. We also learn that he was already orphaned. He was born in 1987 in Tehran, Iran to Roya and Ali Ali Shams. Shortly after his birth, the accidental shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 killed his mother. Roya was traveling to Dubai to visit her brother Arash, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War. His father was, naturally, devastated. However, he was not provided space to process his grief. He found himself suffocated by people – relatives and friends – who, despite their good intentions, were encroaching on Ali’s space. Ali then unilaterally decided to move to the United States to work in a chicken factory. In a foreign country, he managed to raise his son on his own.

Cyrus, on the other hand, grew up struggling with night terrors and nighttime incontinence. To overcome this, he taught himself to sleep by staging imaginary conversations between the most influential figures in his life. Shortly after he started attending Keady University, Ali passed away. With neither a father nor a mother, Cyrus found himself sucked into the quagmires of addiction; his father also struggled with alcoholism. He found himself haunted by the death of his mother while coping with the death of his father. Cyrus started to believe that his father died a long time ago but only forced himself to live for as long as his son learned to live independently; when Cyrus entered university, Ali’s earthly duties had been fulfilled. His struggles were exacerbated by depression and insomnia. He was, nevertheless, able to clean up his acts and set on a road to recovery. He started Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings and started working as a medical actor. A poet – stereotyped because of his Persian origins – he worked on writing poems.

The crux of the story, however, was Cyrus’ desire to write a book of poetry about martyrdom, hence, the book’s title. At least, this is how I initially understood how the book’s title was derived although I can sense something deeper, or perhaps more sinister. Further, Cyrus’ fixation, maybe obsession, with death and dying as a martyr was fueling his drive to write this book; the novel was riddled with poems Cyrus wrote as part of his writing project. While working on this book, Cyrus was forced to confront seminal questions on existentialism while, at the same time, taking off the lid on his family’s history, particularly his uncle and mother. This project also led him to Brooklyn where he met Orkideh, an artist dying from cancer. Orkideh was spending her dying days in a museum owned by her ex-wife and talking to visitors as part of a performance.

Cyrus loomed above the story but it was not only Cyrus’ perspective that we get to read. We read about the backstories of Roya, Ali, Arash, and even a friend. This could get convoluted but, with Akbar’s careful and astute writing, he was able to make it work. The swirl of different voices and ideas was somehow cohesively woven together into a lush tapestry brimming with humor, wit, and even philosophical intersections. Martyr! is a textured story that I am more than happy to have included in my 2024 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To list. I am under a hundred pages away from completing the book and I can’t wait to see how the story pans out. How about you fellow reader? What book or books have you read over the weekend? I hope you get to enjoy whatever you are reading right now. Happy weekend!