Book Review: "Martyr!" by Kaveh Akbar

“Can you imagine having that kind of faith?” Cyrus asked. “To be that certain of something you’ve never seen? I’m not that certain of anything. I’m not that certain of gravity.”

This book was on lots of critics’ and Bookstagram friends’ 2024 best-of lists. I had meant to read it last year but didn’t get around to it, so it was my first read of the new year.

The son of Iranian immigrants, Cyrus grew up under the specter of grief. When he was an infant, his mother was killed when her plane was inadvertently shot down over the Persian Gulf. His father, who worked at a farm killing chickens, died shortly after Cyrus left for college.

A recovering alcoholic and addict, Cyrus wants to be a poet and fancies himself a provocateur. He becomes obsessed with martyrs (unsurprisingly) as a topic for his poetry, and is drawn to a terminally ill artist whose final work is spending the rest of her life in a museum.

He also is inspired by his uncle, who was shattered by his time in the Iranian military. His uncle used to dress as the Angel of Death and ride through the battlefields, so that vision would be the last thing dying soldiers saw. And when Cyrus finds a painting of his mother in an art gallery, he realizes that all he was told about her may not be true.

Kaveh Akbar is a poet, so it’s not surprising that his prose is really beautiful. I just felt like the book was really disjointed; the narration shifted among many characters and between past and present. This was tremendously thought-provoking, however.

Book Review: "The Guncle Abroad" by Steven Rowley

I always am a bit worried that a sequel won’t live up to its predecessor. In the case of The Guncle Abroad, my fears were completely unwarranted: it had all of the humor, emotion, and heart that the original did.

Five years have passed since Patrick took care of Maisie and Grant, his niece and nephew, following the death of his sister-in-law, who was also Patrick’s best friend. During this time, Patrick has relaunched his acting career and moved to New York City, while the kids are back at home in Connecticut with their father, Greg.

When Greg decides to get married to an Italian woman, he once again enlists his brother’s help, because the kids—particularly Maisie—are vehemently opposed to the marriage. Patrick agrees to travel with the kids through Europe, with their final destination being Lake Como, where the wedding will take place.

“That was the thing about grief, none of us wanted to travel with it, exactly, but the suggestion that we would or should be over it was somehow an even more unwelcome passenger.”

As they make their way through London, Paris, and Salzburg, en route to Venice and Lake Como, Patrick tries to provide Maisie and Grant with more “Guncle Rules” to help them process the changes coming to their lives. At the same time, Patrick is dealing with his own questions about his recently ended relationship as well as the grief he still feels for Sara. But most of all, he wants to make the kids happy—mostly with him.

There are some uproariously funny moments in this book with several of the supporting characters. There also are moments of true poignancy which made me tear up. This is a book about all kinds of love—romantic, filial, familial—as well as the balance between moving on and holding on to memories. I loved this so much!!