MARTYR! by Kaveh Akbar (in person)

Another buzzy book the world talks about is up for discussion in our group. It was suggested by Chris who will also moderate.
We are meeting in a bar or restaurant in Karlshorst (close to the S-Bahn Station), please be prepared to order some food or a beverage.
The Guardian says about the book:
„The story is set in 2017 but the narrative intermittently skips back in time, revisiting Cyrus’s childhood in Indiana and his parents’ life in late 1980s Iran. Growing up as a bisexual Iranian in the American midwest, he cultivated a “pathological politeness” in order to get by; campus open mic nights in Indiana were “a safe little oasis of amongness”. The third-person narration is interspersed with chapters told from the perspectives of various other characters, including Cyrus’s uncle Arash, a PTSD-afflicted veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, and Zee, his roommate turned lover. There are surreal dream sequences featuring Lisa Simpson, Donald Trump and the Persian poet Rumi; and occasional fragments of diaristic prose-poetry. The story’s disparate elements are neatly interwoven, even if the plot device that sets up the resolution is a little far-fetched.“
So get your copy of the book, read, think and get ready to share thoughts, doubts, questions and impressions.