"What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me," Receives Honorable Mention

Excited to be selected by Arch St. Press for the first chapter of my novel, What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me. Following loosely in the tradition of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Jonathan Evison’s The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, my novel follows the adventures of Lee, a thirteen-year-old boy afflicted with a premature aging disease, and his caretaker, Tomas— a former political prisoner of Argentina’s Dirty War.  Tomas, recently released from prison, has come to the states in search of his missing wife and daughter. (His wife Violeta was also among the disappeared and pregnant when abducted.)  Lee’s mother Cass hires Tomas as a last-minute replacement caretaker and companion for Lee, whose best friend Kira—afflicted with the same disease— has just died at 13 of a heart attack.  Lee, an American history buff and Ben Franklin fan, has a final wish to visit Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia.  When Cass has a last-minute work schedule change and can’t take Lee, Tomas agrees to take him instead.  Once there, Tomas must tell Lee the truth and together they set out to search for Tomas’s missing family.