J.D. Salinger Is Dead, Age 91

J.D. Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey, and Nine Stories, is dead at 91. His son and his literary agent confirm that he died of natural causes.

Geekosystem will miss the iconic, reclusive author, and we recommend that you read the AP’s comprehensive obituary.

Enraged by all the “phonies” who make “me so depressed I go crazy,” Holden soon became American literature’s most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel’s sales are astonishing – more than 60 million copies worldwide – and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams – to never grow up.

Salinger was writing for adults, but teenagers from all over identified with the novel’s themes of alienation, innocence and fantasy, not to mention the luck of having the last word. “Catcher” presents the world as an ever-so-unfair struggle between the goodness of young people and the corruption of elders, a message that only intensified with the oncoming generation gap.

In 2008, NPR’s All Things Considered examined Catcher in the Rye‘s influence on readers and writers over the years:

(image via Philadelphia City Paper)