Book Club | Genre Jumpers

This in-person book club will explore books from different genres every month. This month's book genre is Non-Fiction and the book we will be reading is titled "The Unclaimed" by Pamela Prickett.

This in-person book club will explore books from different genres every month. This month's book genre is Non-Fiction and the book we will be reading is titled The Unclaimed by Pamela Prickett.

An intimate, deeply moving investigation of an underreported phenomenon-the rising number of unclaimed dead in America today--and what it says about the state of our society. 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, 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 this extraordinary work of narrative nonfiction, eight years in the making, sociologists Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans uncover a hidden social world. They 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. The Unclaimed lays bare the difficult truth that anyone can be abandoned. 

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