I made the mistake of trying to listen to (and watch) a YouTube interview with Kaveh Akbar, the young author of Martyr. He spent a lot of time ruffling through his long hairlocks. It was very distracting from a serious discussion of this overly-long exposition of a quasi-memoir by a twenty-seven-year-old Iranian American who is discussing the year that led up to writing his first book.
Early on Cyrus, our hero, had settled into what he called the “easy domestic bliss of alcoholism.” Who wouldn’t, if your mother was an innocent who had died on a flight that was mistaken for an act of espionage?
“It seems like just a throwaway to die for no reason,” he tells Orkideh, who has chosen to turn her own wasting away from cancer into an art project at the Brooklyn Museum.
Martyr, by Kaveh Akbar is “work” to read. Best to do it quickly. What you have here is a talented wordsmith whose poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review and elsewhere, who is trying to find an editor he can trust with his substantial talent. I wish him luck at finding someone who can usher him into the intricacies of structuring the long form. Someone he can trust.
Good luck, Kaveh.
Flaneuse 
What an insightful and generous review.
I so much enjoy your comments on the many books you read….as well as admire your wide interests and envy your laser-type summaries.
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Thanks. It’s about the only thing I do regularly that uses my brain. We only travel by car these days. We are kind of stuck in the Southwest. It’s blooming hot right now. I miss Sam and Joshua but don’t want to face the airport and what it would take energy wise to get to the Northwest. We have friends in Pagosa Springs, Co and might head over there by car next week.. I hope you are well. Would love to see you.
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We were in Portland for about two weeks at the beginning of June. The weather was nice, and Anna and I were able to get a lot of gardening done. But we find that transcontinental travel takes a lot out of us, no matter what the weather. We need a day or two of recovery at each end of such a trip. I remember the days when I would fly home from a two-week stint in Asia and go to work the next day. No more!
We saw Bill and Melissa Roberts this weekend. They asked about you and we were happy to fill them in your Arizona home and your blog.
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Good for you for successful travelling. Bruce will no longer get on an airplane. He was felt up on our last trip back from Eastern Europe. We now only go places by car and I am plagued by fear of falling. I miss Sam and Joshua and will go to Portland for a week in late August. I have so many friends there. I’ll walk all over. Give my best to the Roberts.
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