Cyrus Shams
Martyr! follows Cyrus Shams, a 27-year-old former addict and alcoholic struggling to seek meaning in his life, particularly following his parents' deaths. Cyrus is portrayed as an existentially tormented and intensely self-aware young man. He wishes to live and die in such a way that counters the senselessness of his mother's death and the anonymity of his father's life. According to Cyrus's friends and close confidants, he often vacillates between self-loathing and self-pity. His conflicted identity as an Iranian American who grew up in the American Midwest fuels a sense of inner turmoil. Cyrus's love for writing allows him to channel his trauma into language and make sense of the world. Throughout Martyr! Cyrus works on a book about martyrdom that includes elegies for famous martyrs and Cyrus's loved ones.
Zee Novak
Zee (Zbigniew Ramadan) Novak is Cyrus's roommate and friend. He disapproves of Cyrus's acting gig and often offers advice or works to make Cyrus's life easier. The reason for this is that his feelings for Cyrus go beyond friendship. Since early on in their years-long acquaintance, Zee has been in love with Cyrus. They have casual sexual encounters from time to time as they continue dating other people. In the novel's present, Zee accompanies Cyrus to New York to meet the artist Orkideh. Toward the end of their trip, Zee no longer tolerates Cyrus's suicidal ideation, and he storms out of their hotel. However, after finding out about Orkideh's death, Zee reconciles with Cyrus.
Gabe
Gabe is Cyrus's Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. Sober for decades, Gabe works as a community college professor and spends the rest of his time sponsoring recovering addicts and parenting his teenage son. Cyrus remarks that Gabe reveres and resembles John Wayne, and Gabe indeed exudes a kind of brusque toughness in the way he speaks to Cyrus. Particularly, he brushes aside Cyrus's connection to his Persian heritage in such a way that causes Cyrus to cease reaching out to him.
Ali Shams
Ali Shams became a single father when his wife, Cyrus's mother Roya, was killed on Iran Air Flight 655. Raising Cyrus was no easy feat because the toddler suffered from sleep terrors and bed wetting. Upon moving to the United States, Ali took a job at an industrial chicken farm, feeding and measuring the birds for low pay. He worked hard six days per week. Every year around Nowruz, Ali would call Arash (Roya's brother) to wish him a happy new year. To deal with life's hardships, Ali took to drinking gin every night, eventually succumbing to alcoholism. He died prior to the novel's narrative present, while Cyrus was still in college.
Roya
Roya is Cyrus's mother, who he believes died on Iran Air Flight 655. Since her childhood, Roya struggled against conservative norms in Iran, particularly those that demanded she embody the traditional roles of wife and mother. She resigned herself to this fate when she married Ali Shams and conceived Cyrus, but she eventually sought freedom and passion through a secret affair with Leila. Roya abandoned her husband and infant son, faking her death and taking on a new identity in another country after her lover was killed. For years, Roya waitressed to stay financially afloat as she immersed herself in painting. Upon meeting the gallerist Sang Linh, Roya broke into the mainstream art world and achieved success under the name Orkideh. Overall, Roya's complex and multifaceted character challenges social constraints concerning women's lives, sexuality, and self-fulfillment. However, in dismantling her former life, she also doomed her son to depression.
Arash
Roya's older brother Arash suffered PTSD after serving in the Iranian Army in the war with Iraq in the 1980s. He was assigned a strange and secret job, which was to inspire dying Iranian soldiers to die with dignity and conviction. To do this, he would don a long black cloak and ride out on horseback after conflicts while shining a flashlight beneath his face. Following mustard gas attacks, the delirious soldiers believed that Arash was an angel. When the war ended, Arash lived on government assistance. Roya supposedly died on a flight to go visit her brother. Every Nowruz, Ali and Cyrus would call Arash to wish him a happy new year.
Sad James
Sad James is a friend of Cyrus and Dee's whom they met while at college. A musician, he plays "intensely solemn electronic songs" at various shows and open mics (Chapter 7). He only briefly appears in the novel, sharing about Orkideh's Death-Speak exhibit and encouraging his friends to travel to New York.
Orkideh
Orkideh is a nationally renowned painter and performance artist who, in her final days, installs herself as an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Called Death-Speak, this exhibit invites the public to come speak to her in her final days. Cyrus travels to New York specifically to interview Orkideh for his book on martyrdom. Over the course of Cyrus's daily visits, he and Orkideh discuss all manner of topics, from martyrdom to art to political realities to history. They connect on an extremely personal level due to the revelation that Orkideh is, in fact, Cyrus's mother, whom he long believed to be dead.
After her chosen death via overdosing on pain medicine, Orkideh posthumously publishes a self-written obituary in which she outlines her agency and requests forgiveness.
Sang Linh
Sang Linh is Orkideh's gallerist and ex-wife. Even after their romantic relationship ended, Sang continued to represent her former partner in the art world. They met when Roya was a waitress who regularly visited galleries. Sang became a prominent figure in the New York art scene years after emigrating from Vietnam and struggling with addiction as a single mother of three boys. She harnessed her fear and anger to create a better life for herself and her sons. In the novel, Sang connects the past with the present by revealing crucial insights to Cyrus about his mother.
