Martyr!: A novel

Martyr! follows Cyrus Shams, a newly sober poet and the son of Iranian immigrants, who has grown up surrounded by grief and displacement. His mother died when her plane was shot down, and his father lived a hard, quiet life working at a factory farm. Haunted by questions of identity, faith, and purpose, Cyrus becomes fascinated with the idea of martyrdom.

This search leads him to uncover family secrets—such as an uncle who roamed war zones dressed as the angel of death—and to a terminally ill painter in the Brooklyn Museum whose work may reveal a darker truth about his mother’s past.

Both moving and humorous, the novel explores how we try to make meaning from loss through art, memory, belief, and human connection.