The Wrong End of the Table, Salman, Ayser,

You know that feeling of being at the wrong end of the table? Like youre at a party but all the good stuff is happening out of earshot (#FOMO)? Thats life--especially for an immigrant.

What happens when a shy, awkward Arab girl with a weird name and an unfortunate propensity toward facial hair is uprooted from her comfortable (albeit fascist-regimed) homeland of Iraq and thrust into the cold, alien town of Columbus, Ohio--with its Egg McMuffins, Barbie dolls, and kids playing doctor everywhere you turned?

This is Ayser Salmans story. First comes Emigration, then Naturalization, and finally Assimilation--trying to fit in among her blonde-haired, blue-eyed counterparts, and always feeling left out. On her journey to Americanhood, Ayser witnesses a blowjob at pre-kindergarten daycare, breaks one of her parents rules (Thou shalt not participate as an actor in the school musical where a male cast member rests his head in thy lap), and other things good Muslim Arab girls are not supposed to do. And, after the 9/11 attacks, she experiences the isolation of being a Muslim in her own country. It takes hours of therapy, fifty-five rounds of electrolysis, and some ill-advised romantic dalliances for Ayser to grow into a modern Arab American woman who embraces her cultural differences.