Martyr!

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Reader Fit: Perfect for readers who enjoy literary fiction that explores identity, grief, faith, and the search for meaning with emotional depth and wit.

Why We Carry It: We carry Martyr! because it examines grief, addiction, faith, and cultural identity through the perspective of an Iranian American protagonist searching for purpose. It invites readers into questions of belonging and mortality while demonstrating how empathy can emerge from vulnerability and shared humanity.