Fatima Abdullah has exactly nine days left to live. For 992 nights, the eighty-five-year-old matriarch of a sprawling Arab American family has received nightly visits from the immortal Scheherazade, the bold and beautiful Persian queen who saved her own life with the spellbinding tales known asThe Arabian Nights. Scheherazade has asked Fatima to share one story from her past on each visit. But on the 1,001st night, Fatima knows her storytelling—and her life—will come to an end. With time running out, Fatima still has many accounts to settle. She must find a wife for her openly gay grandson, teach Arabic to her wayward teenage great-granddaughter, make amends with her estranged husband, and most importantly, decide which imperfect family member deserves her ancestral home in Lebanon—a house she has not laid eyes on in seventy years. As Fatima deliberates about all of her children, two bumbling FBI agents spying on the Abdullah household in Los Angeles believe they’ve uncovered an Al Qaeda plot and may thwart Fatima’s dying wishes. Shifting between the U.S. and the Middle East, first-time novelist Alia Yunis pieces together four generations of family secrets in this hilarious, heartwarming debut that creates a vibrant mosaic of modern Arab American life.