Family man Jack Hall wants nothing more than to be a respectable newspaper reporter, see a good baseball game now and again, love his wife, and watch his son grow up in their middle-class, white community. Then he finds himself on the fault line where black meets white in the American South of the late 1950s. Still reeling from an explosive confrontation that put his family in jeopardy (detailed in Richard Doster's first book, Safe at Home ), Jack takes a job with the Atlanta Constitution and moves his wife and son south. He's thrilled when he's introduced to legendary editor Ralph McGill, an outspoken opponent of segregation who promptly sends Jack to Montgomery to investigate reports of a bus boycott. There Jack meets another man on the fault Martin Luther King Jr. Profoundly moved by King's commitment to Christian philosophy, Jack's writing begins to reflect a need for racial equality and tolerance that isn't always well received-even by his own wife. As the years pass, Jack covers stories from Little Rock to Greensboro, about Southerners from Lester Maddox to Flannery O'Connor-always using his writing as a conscience for the South he loves so much. But once again, historic events sweep Jack-and his idealistic son, Chris-into harm's way. Will this be the collision that destroys his family forever?