According to The Unclaimed - Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels by Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans, up to 150,000 Americans die and are unclaimed each year. Being unclaimed means the remains of the deceased were not claimed by family or friends, and were buried, cremated or laid to rest by local government despite attempts made to contact loved ones.
Prickett is an Associate Professor of Sociology and former broadcast journalist and Timmermans is a Professor of Sociology at UCLA, and in this book they attempt to make us care about these numbers by providing detailed accounts of four people who died and were unclaimed. The upbringing, family situation and lifestyle in the lead up to these four deaths were discussed in such detail that I soon began to lose interest. Perhaps that's the point.
Loneliness, isolation and estrangement were leading factors but also unsurprisingly was the amount of red tape surrounding death notifications, government assistance and the rules around responsibility for the dead. Some of the unclaimed had family members who refused to be involved or claim their loved one's remains due to the enforced requirement to engage a funeral home. In other cases, friends or acquaintances who tried to claim remains were turned away in favour of family members who couldn't be traced.
Far more interesting - and less frustrating - were the sections featuring the investigators, notification officers and crematorium workers involved in taking care of the unclaimed dead. It was inspiring to read about the charities and individuals who began looking after unclaimed veterans or the remains of unclaimed babies. Their empathy seemed to have no bounds and they're an inspiration to us all, but frankly it shouldn't have to come down to the generosity and goodwill of strangers.
Listening to The Unclaimed audiobook narrated by Nan McNamara, I was prepared to experience feelings of despair, however the 'hope' mentioned in the subtitle allowed me to be optimistic for the future. Surely the book would report or predict a turnaround in the numbers of people being unclaimed after death or a change in legislation or a comprehensive overhaul of government departments to streamline the process. Sadly I didn't finish the book with anything like hope for the future, and was left instead with a renewed disappointment in humanity.
I was really curious about this title, thanks for sharing your thoughts
ReplyDeleteThanks Shelleyrae, I think I might have seen this first in one of your posts!
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