Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Maren Wiederhold

THE UNCLAIMED

Stefan Timmermans Pamela Prickett

Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels

A really moving story about the rising number of unclaimed dead in America today, who died without anyone willing or able to claim their bodies - and poses urgent questions about the state of our society and our souls.

An extraordinary work of narrative nonfiction eight years in the making, THE UNCLAIMED is a deep investigation of the lives of the unclaimed dead in Los Angeles, their families, the workers charged with tending their bodies, and the strangers who show up to mourn them, sparking a long-overdue conversation about where we're headed as a society and what we owe each other, in death and in life. Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans follow four Angelenos, tracing the twisting, poignant paths that lead each one to go unclaimed, and introduce us to the scene investigators, notification officers, and crematorium workers who care for them when no one else will. Beautifully crafted and deeply empathetic, THE UNCLAIMED urges us to expand our circle of caring - in death and in life. Stefan Timmermans, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology at UCLA, and editor-in-chief of the journal Social Science and Medicine: Qualitative Research in Health. He is the author of nine books, including DATA ANALYSIS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH (University of Chicago Press). Dr. Timmermans was honored in 2019 by the American Sociological Association with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Pamela Prickett, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam, and the author of BELIEVING IN SOUTH CENTRAL: Everyday Islam in the City of Angels (University of Chicago Press). Prickett is former broadcaster and an award-winning writer, whose work has appeared in Social Problems, Gender & Society, City & Community, and other academic journals.

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Book Published 2024-03-12 by Crown

Comments

The Unclaimed reveals just how easy it is for even relatively stable Americans to slide into lives of ghastly isolation, and to die alone. The stories it tells are troubling and compelling, and its exploration of the hidden corners of this reality is unique and important.

Poignant... An unsettling study of how social fracturing and community breakdown underpin lonely deaths... researched and written with appropriate sensitivity, care, and dignity.

Powerful. Haunting. This book is living witness to the millions of forgotten dead, reminding us that we reaffirm our own humanity each time we tell the stories of those already gone.

A work of grace... Both cleareyed and disturbing, yet pulsing with empathy.

The Unclaimed is a rare and compassionate look into the lives of Americans who go unclaimed when they die and those who dedicate their lives to burying them with dignity. This humane and deeply reported book is full of surprises, insights, and tender moments that culminate in a powerful indictment of American life. What The Unclaimed lays bare about our families, our loneliness, our poverty - and our decency and courage, as well - demands that we reexamine our own lives while we still have breath.

The Unclaimed is a stunning work of narrative journalism that takes on the difficult, even taboo subject of society's unclaimed dead. Through the stories of several very different people whose bodies end up in the care of the state for very different reasons, Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans carefully and tenderly humanize who these people were in life, and in the process, explain how our flawed systems threaten to withhold this final dignity for society's most vulnerable.

With exceptional humanity, The Unclaimed follows the dead who have fallen through the cracks of Los Angeles' stifling postmortem bureaucracy. A bracing and impressive read.