Porter Briggs' grandfather was born on the heels of the Civil War. Porter grew up in the rise of Civil Rights. His father was Arkansas' first pediatrician. His mother's death from alcoholism, when he was eighteen years old, left its imprint even, or especially, on the one-night affair that produced his son.

After Cold War tank maneuvers and grad school in Germany, Porter advanced Arkansas, catfish-farming, and hospital associations-then historic preservation and restoration. In California, he drove an anti-nuke campaign with Paul Newman. Heading East, he blazed through Wall Street, massive greenhouses, and boxwood, the great American shrub-punctuated with a White House Fellowship, John Denver's massive concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and hanging with Sting.

Porter was with Drexel-Burnham-Lambert the day it blew up, in Virginia when his life imploded, and two blocks from the White House on 9/11. He rebuilt his life and had a thriving passport business when love for Diane Wilder called him home to Arkansas.

Porter vowed early to shut off God, but God never left him. Not in bad decisions or business catastrophes . . . not when he gave up his son for adoption or labored for decades to find and know him.

Porter says God plays the long game, and that it's worth the journey. South, Towards Home is his journey: a love story that starts with a boy losing himself and ends with a man finding his son.