The Passing of Icons

by Jo Robertson

My husband says everything comes in three’s. Three natural disasters in a row, three appliances breaking down within months of one another, three celebrity deaths.

This week two very different but memorable writers passed away.

According to reports, American crime writer Robert B. Parker died at the age of 77 at his desk, writing, of course -- the literary equivalent of a cowboy dying with his boots on. The incredibly prolific writer, noted especially for the Spenser (no first name) series (“s,” not “c,” like Edmund Spenser), also penned the Sunny Randall series, as well as my personal favorite, the Jesse Stone books. He also wrote numerous stand-alone books and westerns.

When I heard the news of Parker's death, I felt like an old friend had died. He's one of the few writers I auto-buy in hardback and his Spenser books are a throw-back to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet.

Then on Thursday reclusive J.D. Salinger, whose iconic work The Catcher in the Rye has been read by millions of teenagers (usually in their sophomore year in high school), died at the age of 91.

The Catcher in the Rye is rich with teenage angst, rebellion, and alienation. I taught Catcher for many years and have had parents seek me out at Back to School Nights to say, “This was the defining book of my adolescence. Thank God, you’re teaching it.”

Or, on a rare occasion, a parent might grumble something like, “That damned book ought to be banned.” Such controversy has surrounded the book since its publication in 1951.

Risking the wrath of a conservative school board, I went all Holden Caulfield on the latter kinds of parents, showing a spark of courage in my career when answering, “I don’t believe in censorship of any kind.” Ouch, what a rebel.

So now I hold my breath, not really superstitious, but uneasy, wondering silently what I’d do if one of my favorite writers no longer penned the stories I love. It’s unthinkable that I’d never read a new book by Stephen King or J.D. Robb, J.R. Ward or Kate Atkinson, Meg Gardiner or Anna Campell, Mary Balogh or Anne Perry, Robert Crais or Michael Connelly. And the list goes on . . .

Salinger hadn’t published in forty-five years but by accounts there were piles and piles of notebooks at his home. He claimed he continued to write because he enjoyed it so much.

Right now I’m reading Brimstone, one of Parker’s westerns. A new Jesse Stone book comes out next month. Was this the last book he wrote, I wonder?

Now, your turn, readers. Which two authors would you mourn if they never wrote a new piece of writing? They don’t have to die! Just no more new stories. And yes, you must narrow it down to two and you must share why.