Susan Straight

Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights Susan Straight

"A writer of exceptional gifts and grace." --Joyce Carol Oates

Darnell Tucker has more to think about than the average twenty-year-old. A resident of impoverished Rio Seco, California, he works part time as the lone black member of the fire department, and will soon be a father. Though he loves his job, cutbacks to the state budget force him to search for new work, and the low-paying positions he finds rival firefighting in their peril. On two of the jobs, he's mistaken for a criminal by the police; coming home from another, he's shot at by a gang. His path blocked by economics, institutionalized racism, and the dangers of the place where he lives, how can he provide for his daughter, who has changed his life?

Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights is a stark and thoroughly convincing portrait of life on the margins.