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.
TRAILER: The Unmarked Graveyard
The Longest Game
The Girls of the Leesburg Stockade
Busman's Holiday
Guest Spotlight: Buffalo Extreme
The Gospel Ranger
The Longest Game
Meet Miss Subways
The Ski Troops of WWII
Sofia's Choice: A Ukrainian Diary, One Year Later
Living with Dying
The Rise and Fall of Black Swan Records
The Real Refugees of Casablanca
The History Of Now
A Guitar, A Cello and the Day that Changed Music
Banging on the Door: The Election of 1872
The Square Deal
The Massacre at Tlatelolco
Guest Spotlight: Ear Hustle
Working, Then And Now
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Criminal
Ear Hustle
Song Exploder
The Truth
the memory palace