A young fireman battles to provide for his family--and struggles to avoid the traps of crime and poverty that surround him 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 is soon to 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 very dangers of the place where he lives, how can he provide for his baby daughter, who has changed his life?   Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights is a stark and thoroughly convincing portrait of life on the margins.