If Scheherazade, the famous narrator of 1001 Nights,
gained immortality beyond the immortality of her words, how do you
imagine she would spend her time? In her debut novel, THE NIGHT
COUNTER, Alia Yunis writes that she would spend her time collecting
more stories.

In this latest reimagining of Scheherazade, she is extracting
1,001 stories from Fatima Abdullah, an aging Lebanese woman living
in Los Angeles with her grandson, Amir. Fatima is convinced she has
just days to live, and she has a lot to accomplish in that time.
She must decide which of her children will inherit the family home
back in Lebanon, she must find a wife for Amir (who happens to be
gay), she must teach her pregnant teenage great-granddaughter to
read the Qur’an in Arabic, and she must keep Scheherazade
happy with her stories of her family, including life with her two
husbands, Marwan and Ibrahim, and their 10 children.

Fatima arrived in Michigan as a young bride. With no English she
relied on her kind-hearted husband Marwan, who had been in the US
for many years working at the Ford Motor Company. Tragically, after
Fatima is finally getting comfortable in her new home and awaiting
the birth of her first child, Marwan dies. Before Laila is born she
marries Marwan’s close friend Ibrahim, a man who makes her
laugh. Ibrahim is a quiet and increasingly distant partner. Still,
he raises Laila as his own, and he and Fatima have nine more
children.

Decades later the Arab and Muslim communities of the US have
grown larger, and Fatima’s 10 children and many grandchildren
are grown and scattered across the country (and even back in the
Middle East). As she senses death approaching, the quirky yet
traditional Fatima begins to plan for her family’s future
without her.

There are several sub-stories in the book. Readers meet all of
Fatima’s children and grandchildren, and they each get their
own story as Scheherazade travels to each of them on her flying
carpet. There are several mysteries in these pages as well: Why did
Fatima recently divorce Ibrahim and move to California? Why are two
shady figures and the FBI spying on the family? Is Scheherazade a
figment of Fatima’s imagination, or really the ghost of the
legendary storyteller?

THE NIGHT COUNTER is sweet and charming and often quite funny,
yet it packs an emotional punch at the end. Yunis mostly manages to
keep track of her many characters and maintain the primacy of
Fatima’s story. But sometimes it feels like there is too much
going on, and the story becomes cluttered. Still, Yunis, like
Scheherazade, is a fantastic guide, and the book overall is a good
one.

Fatima’s family is intelligent and flawed, loving and sad,
fearful and hopeful all at once. Though much of what they deal with
is particular to immigrants and minority cultures, they are also
just trying to find acceptance, happiness, success and
unconditional love in the face of ordinary challenges. Family, love
and loss, as well as national, ethnic and religious identity and
assimilation, are the major themes here. THE NIGHT COUNTER is a
lovely take on family drama and a wonderful illumination of the
importance of storytelling.