Martyr, by Kaveh Akbar

I just finished reading Kaveh Akbar’s novel Martyr. My copy of book has more than 25 effusive praises from mostly (but not entirely) east or west coast reviewers. So here again I find the number a bit overstated and feel like the inclusion of all this “doth protest too much.” And yet, not all the praise comes across as praise. Some of it addresses Akbar’s structure and layout of the novel, citing a “reinvention” of the genre. But yes, that is also praised. What is always interesting about such praise is that the critic would need to land on one of two sides: either it is a reinventing/re imagining and “brilliant” as commentators say (reference the Norwegians Jon Fosse or Karl Ove Knausgård as other examples of the very different thing being high and/or deep art) or, they would have the other end of the spectrum with perhaps “the emperor has no clothes” and it’s crap. In my early training in both workshops and grad school, much of what Akbar does would have been labeled crap and the rejection letters would fly.

But all that is changing, and it feels like the novel is undergoing serious reinvention. This has been the case in other novels I’ve discussed as well. Tommy Orange claims Akbar is one of his favorite writers. But all one need do is to read his own There, There, and his sentiment becomes more understandable. As for Martyr, the story moves back and forth between the 80s and the late 90s, mostly 1997. At times, it’s hard to know if it moved, or if the movement to the 80s is just a memory or sometimes a dream of the character in the 90s but dreaming the past. Sometimes it does move in time (there is some time spent in 1973 as well) but not always. I made a spreadsheet so I could keep track of what was happening and when. But a good author, and Akbar certainly is good, would not worry about the reader. He wrote what he intended to write. If the reader doesn’t get it or can’t follow along between periodic references to antiquity, the Iraq/Iran war, mother dying, dad good but clueless in some ways, the insertion of a poem here and there that I didn’t take time to fully understand how it fit in the book, and other anomalies-claimed-as-art, then it’s just too bad… This sentiment I do agree with and more power to you, Kaveh.

TV A sensitive topic that I feel needs to be addressed is the aspect of gayness and its prevalence in Martyr, and maybe across writing today. First, I have it in my own work, at least to some extent and second, if my family held a reunion without inviting the LGBTQ relatives, we’d need far fewer pizzas. So, most of my own generation has gotten past gayness as an issue since it’s a fact, always has been, and it’s ok. But we may not focus as much time on it as the writers of today. Akbar’s book has a mother who left her husband and enters a gay relationship until that lover dies, then has another lover who also left a man, ending up with his mother until she’s gone, then takes another woman as lover and wife. The main character is gay, his mother is gay with a series of lovers, a third character is gay with a series of lovers. Ok, I get it and the chain continues. But what is gained from this heavy emphasis on gayness is unclear to me, and none of the 25 critical praises to the book address it. So I take it as merely fact, a normalization of it in literature as it is in life, and without a deeper message, and maybe it’s even a bit of stereotype or cliché given they are mostly artists… Maybe someone can explain it better and enlighten me someday.

Finally, the last 100 pages are where I most feel the legitimacy of the novel as being praiseworthy. Truly masterful prose, character depth, and plot heft. Creative and original. And yes, it does feel like a reinvention, or re imagination of the novel genre. I will remain in my own style of literary fiction even if it’s time has passed – because that’s what I want to do and if readers find it so passè, that’s ok too. Suffice it to say I’m thankful for Samantha Harvey’s Orbital (which I have also reviewed) and with which I find myself more closely aligned: lyrical and mysterious and lovely. In the meantime, godspeed, Kaveh!