![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/static01.nyt.com/packages/flash/multimedia/ICONS/transparent.png)
Robert M. Pirsig in 1975.
William Morrow, via Associated Press
Robert M. Pirsig
Died on April 24, 2017 at age 88
Mr. Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” a dense and discursive novel of ideas, became an unlikely publishing phenomenon in the mid-1970s and a touchstone in the waning days of the counterculture.
Notable Deaths 2017
Remembering Mary Tyler Moore, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lewis, David Rockefeller, Trisha Brown, Glen Campbell, Dick Gregory, Edith Windsor, Sam Shepard, Tom Petty and many others who died this year.