This is a novel about death, addiction and art. Which all sounds a bit heavy and sad, but that’s not the case at all. If the cheeky, provocative title doesn’t hint enough (I love the exclamation mark), the playful structure, with its dream sequences and non-linear narrative (complete with flashbacks) and bits of poetry (Akbar is a poet by trade), add a measure of humour and vibrancy to the novel’s darker, tragic elements. Or, to put it another way, it’s fucking awesome.

Our hero is Cyrus Sams. When he was an infant, living in Iran, his mother was killed, along with 274 other passengers, when her plane from Tehran to Dubai was shot down (accidentally?) by the USS Vincennes (this actually happened. Somehow, the Vincennes mistook a passenger plane for an F-14 Tomcat). His father, unable to cope as a single dad in Iran, emigrates with Cyrus to America. Cyrus’s childhood isn’t great. His father isn’t violent, but they live on the poverty line, and the death of Cyrus’s mother haunts them both. 

But when we meet Cyrus, he’s in his twenties. He’s only just gone sober (having spent several years drinking himself to near death) and has started thinking about writing a book about martyrs, a means of coming to terms with his mother’s meaningless death. This leads him to New York and an encounter with an Iranian artist, dying of cancer, living her last few days in the Brooklyn Museum. It’s an encounter that will change everything. No, really, it does!

Martyr! reminded me of Percival Everett’s Erasure. Both novels are about the nature and purpose of art. For Everett, it’s taking the piss out of the idea that your race defines the stories you’re allowed to tell. For Akbar, it’s questioning whether art can say anything meaningful about life and death. In expressing their ideas, they play with the form. Everett imagines famous artists chatting about art, whereas Akbar presents dream sequences in which the dead (and imagined) members of his family speak to historical figures (including Lisa Simpson). Both feature other literary modes — poetry for Akbar and short fiction for Everett. 

This isn’t to say that Martyr! is overly familiar. It’s not as caustic or mocking as Erasure, but rather an empathetic novel that allows us to love and be annoyed with its main character. And, as a meditation on death, it’s incredibly effective. You leave the novel feeling a little more optimistic about the world. It’s a terrific debut, and I’d be shocked if it (along with Headhsot) doesn’t feature on Best of Year lists by year-end.