Death and whimsy: a curious coincidence

A few weeks ago, some friends and I were sitting in a coffee-shop and I asked if any of them had read The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger and "why was it such a big deal." I was particularly interested because several of these friends came of age a lot closer to when this book became known (i.e., they were much older than I). So we talked and talked over the book, "I haven't thought about Salinger in forever," "it's a coming of age story," "it was controversial," "I don't remember much about it," "it's not the same as Catch-22," "it was emblematic of the times," "tome of teen angst" etc etc. Because so many people consider this book a classic for unique reasons, and because I had these discussions with my friends, and because my public library has a nice new-edition of the book, I went out and picked it up that night.

The next day, J.D. Salinger died. ... ?

That was weird.

One of my friends came to the coffeehouse the next day and declared wryly that I was not allowed to talk about living authors anymore. :)