As always, the sad news seems to come all at once. It’s being reported that the highly-private legendary author J.D. Salinger has passed away at the age of 91. The cause of death was of natural causes, and indications are that Salinger was healthy until recently when illness took on.

The author was something of an enigma. His classic, The Catcher in the Rye is a book that’s so prominent that it feels like it has been around for hundreds of years, even though it was only published in 1951. Over the past few years, just discovering that Salinger was still alive somewhere on this planet felt like some sort of fictional mythology created in his legend, but it was all so true and fascinating to think about.

Salinger himself had a story worthy of books (and a film we’re all but guaranteed to see some day). He was born in Manhattan in 1919 to a Jewish cheese salesman father and a half-Scottish, half-Irish Catholic mother. His father wasn’t big on his talents as an actor and writer and pressed that he learn business, which saw Salinger head to Austria to work at a meat-importing company. This ended up being a close call as he eventually left Austria only a month before the Nazi forces invaded and took over. Not long after this he fell in love with a girl who eventually went on to marry Charlie Chaplin.