Deep in chasm between childhood and adulthood emerge two remarkably similar young men: one from J.D Salinger’s novel “Catcher in the Rye” and one from Dave Eggers’ memoir “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield and memoirist Dave Eggers both hail from families spearheaded by big city lawyers, both tell eccentric lies, lead turbulent love lives, share a taste for profanity, and retreat to California after a traumatic event. However, amongst their myriad similarities, the most prominent link between the two characters centers on their respective traumas. Using distinctly personal first-person narration, both Holden and Dave tell their equally heartbreaking and traumatic stories that ultimately revolve around the death of loved ones.…show more content… In Dave’s memoir, published in 2000, Dave mourns the loss of his parents who died within one month of one another from unrelated cancers. For both characters, death seeps into every aspect of their lives, ultimately creating voids between both protagonist and the relationships they maintain. Each narrator’s incommunicable experience with death filters into familial relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships, rendering each form of relationship unsuccessful. Holden Caulfield and Dave Egger’s common inability to find connections within others hinders their respective aptitude to properly grieve the deaths of their loved ones, however, this makes the autobiographical telling of their stories the most vital component to their