Dinner at the End of the World — Antanas Sileika

This wickedly funny novel takes the premise of Scheherazade's 1001 Nights, compresses it into one night, and places it on the shores of Hudson Bay in the near future, where stranded pilgrims begin to tell stories to one another. They tell mostly love stories that range in time from the temptations of illicit sex for bored couples, to themes of betrayal and loves lost and regained. By the middle of the night, a dark figure at the fireside threatens to snuff out everyone's life at dawn unless their stories are good enough to redeem the world. Is he bluffing ot not?