Death Benefits

Barengaria, Thane and Yardena live with an abusive stepfather in the basement of a shabby house on the coast of Maine.

After they discover the addresses of relatives in a cache of rotting Christmas presents, they begin writing to them secretly. But it seems like escaping from the prison their stepfather has constructed for them will not be easy, and anyone who even attempts to help them faces grave danger.

But the three are each gifted in their own way, and they decide to pursue every option to get out. With their stepfather's presence looming over them like a deadly shadow, can they find their way to freedom... and at what cost?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jerome Mandel, sometime Chair of the English Department at Tel Aviv University and now Professor Emeritus, is the first-place winner of the P.E.N.-UNESCO International Short Story Competition (1997) for ‘Third Time, Ice Cream.’ His first book of stories, Nothing Gold Can Stay: 18 Stories of Israeli Experience appeared in 1999.  Most of the stories in his most recent collection, Covet the Oven, are set in America.  He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, educated at Oberlin and Ohio State, moved to Israel in 1978, and since 2015 now lives in North Carolina.