Meals from Mars

Late one night, a white man from the suburbs and a young Black man from the city's inner neighborhood cross paths at a gas station. Circumstances keep them together for the rest of the night, and they are pushed to examine the assumptions they bring with them. As they talk, each confronts the barriers that divide them and begins to recognize the other as a person made in the image of God.

The novel offers a concrete story for a conversation about race that is often hard to start. Ben Sciacca builds it around two men who come from very different worlds and must actually see, listen to, and consider one another. Along the way, the book explores the difficulties that racial division creates in everyday life and the possibility of reconciliation between people who would otherwise never meet.