Dawn Powell wrote novels about people like herself: outsiders who’d come to New York City in the early twentieth century to make a name for themselves. For a few years, those novels put her at the center of the city’s literary scene. Ernest Hemingway even called her his favorite living writer.
When she died of colon cancer in 1965, Powell donated her body to science. But then her books disappeared from shelves, and, unbeknownst to her family, her body went missing too.
This is episode five of The Unmarked Graveyard, a series untangling mysteries from America’s largest public cemetery. To hear more stories from Hart Island, subscribe to the Radio Diaries feed.
America Vs. America
Love from Six Feet Apart (Revisited)
Love at First Quarantine, The Sequel
Centenarians (Still) in Lockdown
How to Lose an Election: A History
When Nazis Took Manhattan
March of the Bonus Army
The Forgotten Story of Clinton Melton
The Infamous Words of George Wallace
The Final Frontline
Quarantined in the Pizzeria
Lockdown in Lockup
Home is Where You Park Your Mini Van
The Words of Renault Robinson, Then and Now
Love at First Quarantine
Love from Six Feet Apart
Centenarians in Lockdown
Soul Sister
The Long Haul: Busman's Holiday
History Had Me Glued to the Seat
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Criminal
Ear Hustle
Song Exploder
The Truth
the memory palace