The debut novel by a talented and daring Iranian-American poet, author, and teacher came to me via conversations with booksellers at Little District Books, individuals who clearly love their work and their community.
Installment #19 in my series on the region’s independent bookshops.
A friend who joined me on a recent bookstore visit wrote to say that she was reading the “very lovely” little book she bought while we were together. It was “something I wouldn’t have picked but for standing in the store talking about it. So a reminder to myself to buy more books in real life!”
Talking about books with friends and booklovers while perusing the stacks of a shop with a niche or perhaps even quirky personality is one of the joys I’m discovering on my journey through the Washington region’s 30 independent bookstores.
I was hoping to find a booklover to guide me in my discovery at Little District Books on Capitol Hill. When you walk in “you won’t have to look for the LGBTQ+ section,” asserts the shops website, “because every single book in our store is written by, about, and for queer folks!”
I knew that going in. As a well-read straight man I’ve devoured countless works by queer authors through the years, from Hans Christian Anderson, W.H. Auden, and Mary Oliver to Ocean Vuong, Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde. But I don’t regularly read books written specifically about or for queer folks, so I wasn’t sure what I’d find. I should not have worried.
In June 2022, Patrick Kern, a federal government lawyer, opened Little District Books along Barracks Row—the city’s first LGBTQIA-focused bookstore since Lambda Rising closed in 2009. From the very beginning he hoped to open a bigger space if the community would support it. Once the readers came, expanding became a matter of finding the right location.
I visited Little District in their new location, which opened late last year, on a hot July day after already spending time in the nearby Capitol Hill Books and East City Book Shop. The three are within easy walking distance. As Kern told the Washington City Paper:
“The new location puts Little District on a busy main stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue alongside neighborhood staples such as East City Bookshop and Labyrinth Games. The prime location, Kern believes, will encourage customers to stop in as they browse other nearby stores. He also welcomes the chance to be closer to another bookstore, which he sees as an opportunity.
‘The net effect of having a bunch of bookstores together is people spend money on books,’ he says. ‘More readers will come here because we’re together. … We have different audiences and we don’t have that much overlap in what we have in the store.'”
Before arriving I perused the staff recommendations on the website. They offered up multiple possibilities. I spoke with the staffer at the front desk, told them of my quest, and said I would probably ask for assistance after I spent some time checking out the inventory in the large and welcoming space. Thirty minutes later I was still uncertain what to select, but my conversation with the very helpful staff and the onsite recommendation by Rahaf led me to select a National Book Award finalist that had generated a great deal of praise for a first-time novelist. As my friend noted, this was a work I wouldn’t have picked but for standing in the store talking about it.
Martyr! (2024) by Kaveh Akbar is an astonishing and daring debut novel by a talented and daring Iranian-American poet, author, and teacher. The use of language, the multiple voices, the weaving of contemporary and historical text, the very subject matter about the meaning of life and death all come together in a way that is fresh and funny and savvy and sad all at the same time. Akbar’s writing is so alive and compelling, even when dealing with the protagonist’s overwhelming sadness.
Martyr! follows recovering alcoholic Cyrus Shams as he “wrestles with difficult questions of how to be an artist, an Iranian man, and how to give your life (and death) meaning.” Cyrus came from Tehran to live in Indiana with his father after his mother, Roya, dies. The New York Times review describes the circumstances of her tragic death.
“Just a few months after Cyrus was born, Roya boarded a plane from Tehran to Dubai to visit her brother Arash, ‘who had been unwell since serving in the Iranian Army against Iraq.’ Soon after her plane took off, it was blown up by a missile fired from a U.S. Navy warship: ‘Just shot out of the sky. Like a goose.’
The reference is to the notorious real-life destruction of Iran Air Flight 665 by the U.S.S. Vincennes in 1988. Sixty-six children were aboard Flight 665—Cyrus should have been the 67th, but Roya decided to leave her son home because he was so young.”
The mother’s death affects them all. Arash, the uncle, has hallucinations and falls into deeper despair. Ali, his father, immigrates with his son to America—the country that killed his wife—and takes back-breaking work in an industrial poultry farm in Fort Wayne. He has difficulty sleeping and yet tries to hold it together until his son gets to college. Cyrus uses his wild dreams, art, addiction, and sex to try and forget about the ache in his heart and the feeling of death that both surrounds and calls to him.
The story moves back and forth across time. We see Roya, Ali, and Cyrus before the fatal plane ride. Arash serves as an angel of death on the battlefield to help wounded soldiers make the journey to the next life, service that has led to his despair. Not all of the sections are believable. At times the book, like life, seems over-the-top. But the overall effect pulls the reader along. And given where I purchased the book, one reviewer made a point that resonated with me.
“As a representation of queer relationships, this novel is excellent—it depicts multiple generations of queer couplings without flinching. Avoiding the tragic queer narrative which feels so familiar in mainstream media, Akbar portrays queer relationships as just as complicated, tender, and full of ups and downs as any other relationship. No character in this novel is shown as struggling with their sexuality, a welcome change from persistent media ‘coming out’ stories and other exhausted queer media representations. In Martyr!, queer people are simply living their lives and loving each other, and this is refreshing to see as well as masterfully depicted.”
The book’s focus is tightened when friend and sometimes lover Zee mentions an Iranian artist, Orkideh, to Cyrus. Orkideh is dying of cancer and, in a final piece of performance art is talking about death with anyone who will visit her at the Brooklyn Museum. Cyrus goes to talk with the artist about how one makes one’s death matter. She teases him about becoming a cliché — “another death-obsessed Iranian man.” Yet their conversations, along with her story and her secrets, bring Cyrus to fully face his art, life, and death.
Akbar creates this debut work of prose with energetic and creative writing and wit. A National Book Award finalist named among the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2024, Martyr! has been reviewed in multiple places. A few you might find insightful include:
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to talk about these books, in person, with someone who clearly loves their work and their community. I’m thankful for the staff recommendations at Little District that led me to a book I would not normally have chosen. Martyr! has introduced me to a writer and a world that pushes at the boundaries of my worldview, broadening my perspective of both writing and life.
More to come . . .
DJB
Photo from Shiraz, Iran by Abolfazl Ranjbar on Unsplash
MORE TO COME... 