S3 Ep 191 - The Unclaimed: Pamela Prickett & Stefan Timmermans

For centuries, people who died destitute or alone were buried in potters’ fields—a Dickensian end that even the most hard-pressed families tried to avoid. Today, however, more and more relatives are abandoning their dead, leaving it to local governments to dispose of the bodies. Up to 150,000 Americans now go unclaimed each year. Who are they? Why are they being forgotten? And what is the meaning of life if your death doesn’t matter to others?

 

In THE UNCLAIMED: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels (Crown Hardcover; On Sale 3/12/2024), Prickett and Timmermans follow four individuals in Los Angeles, tracing the twisting, poignant paths that put each at risk of going unclaimed, and introducing us to the scene investigators, notification officers, and crematorium workers who care for them when no one else will. This book lays bare the difficult truth that anyone—even the wealthy and famous—can be abandoned when they die. It forces us to confront a variety of social ills, from the fracturing of families and the loneliness of cities to the toll of rising inequality. But it is also filled with unexpected moments of tenderness: In Boyle Heights, a Mexican American neighborhood not far from the glitter of Hollywood, hundreds of strangers come together each year to mourn thedeaths of people they never knew. As unclaimed numbers statistically increase year by year, these ceremonies are springing up across the country.

 

Eight years in the making, with hundreds of interviews and meticulous research, THE UNCLAIMED calls on all of us to expand our circle of caring—in death and in life.

Get the Book: https://www.theunclaimedbook.com/

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