
BPL · Book · 2024
Martyr!
Kaveh Akbar
A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum"-- Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother's plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father's life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past--toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.
- Demand pressureDemand pressure: composite score across the 12 tracked branches — rewards low availability, branches all out, recent drops, and (when exposed) public hold counts. Higher = harder to get borough-wide.
- 778
- Available
- 2/33
- Branches all out
- 8/10
- Public holdsPublic holds: BPL exposes 'people waiting' at the bib (record) level — one number per work for the entire 60+ branch BPL system, NOT just the 12 tracked branches. We capture the number when it's there. 'Not exposed' means BPL didn't expose it on this scrape — we never substitute zero for missing data.
- 16
ISBN 9780593537619
Current availability across the 12 tracked branches
| Branch | Available | Total | Holds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bay Ridge | 0 | 4 | 3 |
| Bushwick | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Coney Island | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Crown Heights | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Flatbush | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| Greenpoint | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| Kings Highway | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| Williamsburgh | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| Brooklyn Heights | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Sunset Park | 1 | 4 | 0 |
7-day movement
Recent movement

Brooklyn Heights · 0 → 1 available

Sunset Park · 0 → 1 available

Coney Island · 1 → 0 available

Coney Island · 0 → 1 available