Cry in a Long Night opens with Amin Samaa, a young man, walking the length of his native city on a stormy night. He is on his way to the palace of his employer, the aristocratic heiress Inayat Yasser, who has employed him as a writer to work on a grand history of her Ottoman family. On his night journey across the city, Amin recalls his idyllic childhood in a nearby village, his father's death when he was just ten years old, and his family's move to the city's poorest quarters. Thoughts of his estranged wife, Sumaya Shanoub, haunt him continually and her sudden reappearance forces him to make a decision that will change his life drastically.