At the beginning of the novel, Cyrus Shams asks for a divine sign in order to get sober. Two years later, he is working as a medical actor training future doctors in bedside manner, attending AA meetings, and in his free time going to open mics with his best friends. Gabe, Cyrus's AA sponsor, challenges Cyrus's obsession with the past and with his heritage, suggesting that it is a ploy to avoid facing himself in the present. This leads Cyrus to cease communicating with Gabe and quit attending AA meetings. Since childhood, Cyrus has struggled with insomnia, which his single father, Ali, also suffered from. In Chapter 3, Akbar provides the Shams family's backstory. Cyrus's mother, Roya, never desired to be a mother. In 1988, she was killed in Iran Air Flight 655 when a US Navy ship shot down the passenger plane. After Roya's death, Ali did the best he could raising Cyrus by himself in a new country. Cyrus found different strategies to assuage his insomnia over the years. At first he imagines conversations between people, such as the one between Roya and Lisa Simpson recounted in Chapter 5; later he drinks and does drugs to get to sleep.
In Chapter 7, Cyrus tells his friends Zee and Sad James about his idea to write a book on martyrdom. He wants to expand the definition of martyrdom to include his mother's death and his uncle's PTSD. After serving in the Iranian Army during the Iran-Iraq War, Arash was unable to lead a normal life. His role was to dress as an Angel of Death and comfort dying soldiers after conflicts, inspiring them to die with dignity. In Chapter 8, Zee recalls falling in love with Cyrus. In 2014, they worked an odd job together in which a man watched them do yard work in exchange for groceries. Cyrus accidentally sliced his foot while chopping wood. Even in the present day, the scar occasionally throbs. In the novel's present, Cyrus and Zee travel to Brooklyn to meet the dying artist, Orkideh. When Cyrus meets her in Chapter 9, he shares his fixation with death, and she talks about the concept of earth martyrs. Chapter 10 showcases Ali's point of view. He worked for many years at an industrial chicken farm, living a disciplined and laborious life tempered by his drinking, which he claimed helped him get to sleep. The following chapter is from Arash's perspective. His sister Roya's courage and appetite for life always enraged him. When he enlisted in the army, he was aware of his status as expendable. Meanwhile, years later, Cyrus experiences all the complexities of being Iranian-American in the Midwest (Chapter 12).
In Chapter 13, Akbar portrays Roya's love affair with Leila, the wife of Ali's friend, in the late 1980s. In Chapter 14 we return to the narrative present, and Cyrus goes again to speak with Orkideh at the museum. They discuss Tehran, New York, perceptions about martyrdom, W.E.B. Du Bois's writing, Persian mirror art, and Cyrus's book project on martyrs. She tells Cyrus how meaningful their conversations are to her. On a different visit in Chapter 17, Orkideh tells Cyrus that she has dedicated her life to art. Cyrus wonders whether his own death would impact anyone, and Orkideh insists that it would leave a mark on his loved ones. Later, Cyrus wonders how Orkideh knew the details concerning his mother's death on Iran Air Flight 655. In Chapter 20, Zee leaves their hotel, offended by Cyrus's suicidal ideation and insistence that no one cares about him.
Cyrus calls his uncle in Chapter 21 to ask about a painting of Orkideh's depicting Arash's role in the war. Arash tells him about a cassette tape of Allegri's Miserere, and how he seemed to experience heaven each time he listened to it. Later, Cyrus dreams of a conversation between Orkideh and a caricature of Donald Trump named President Invective. In the dream, the two shop for art. Orkideh pays for a painting with her own finger. Cyrus wets the bed for the first time in years in Chapter 24. Upon arriving the next day at the museum, he discovers that Orkideh died the night before, perhaps from overdosing on pain medication. While unconscious after fainting, Cyrus dreams of a conversation between his father and the poet Rumi (Chapter 25). Several museum employees, especially a young person named Prateek, express concern for Cyrus when he wakes up in Chapter 26.
It is revealed in Chapter 27 that Leila and Roya switched documents back in 1988 so that they could escape their husbands and begin a new life together. Thus, Leila died on Flight 655, not Roya. Roya's ex-wife and gallerist Sang Linh calls Cyrus and confirms that Orkideh was in fact Roya, his mother. Sang meets Cyrus at Prospect Park to talk about her own and Roya's immigrant journeys, Roya's rise to fame and artistic success under the name Orkideh, and Sang's own struggles with addiction and sobriety. She encourages Cyrus to accept the full range of his feelings, including anger and fear (Chapter 30). In Chapter 32, Cyrus reads Orkideh's self-written obituary in which she demands forgiveness. Zee meets up with Cyrus at the park, which transforms into a surreal setting. The dreamlike ending leaves multiple interpretations, and the concluding section portrays Sang, Roya, and Sang's son working happily together to take down one of Orkideh's exhibitions.
