The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels

Sociologists Pickett (Believing in South Central) and Timmermans (Postmortem) offer a compassionate if somewhat shortsighted account of Los Angeles County’s “unclaimed dead.” Investigating the bureaucratic process triggered by death, the authors argue that it is mainly “deep estrangement” from family that leads to remains going unclaimed. Among other such cases, they profile David Spencer, a U.S. Navy veteran who died in 2017. His most closely related family, with whom he had not been in contact for nearly two decades, were told they had to pay out of pocket to transfer David’s body to a funeral home (the legal threshold of “claiming”) before they could process his estate or petition for a free military burial. They declined, and David was buried by the county, his funeral paid for from his savings. His relatives didn’t attend the service but inherited the rest of his estate, which a county bureaucrat interprets as a sign of their callous indifference, discounting their claims of poverty and disability. The authors unsatisfyingly conclude in tacit agreement with this perspective, advising readers to keep in touch with family to avoid an “unclaimed” fate (“We hope that you are not estranged from loved ones.... Make sure your loved ones know you care”), rather than highlighting needed reforms of a dysfunctional government process. It’s a moving slice of life with a dispiriting takeaway. (Mar.)