A Separate Peace - John Knowles - 1959
Introduction
A Separate Peace is John Knowles's most famous work and has been a popular secondary school text since its first publication in 1959. This is largely because its primary characters are themselves high school students dealing with many typical adolescent issues. Initially valued by educators as an alternative to J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace quickly established itself on its own merits and was the first recipient of the William Faulkner Award for being the most promising first novel of 1960, when it was published in the United States after initially being published in the United Kingdom in 1959. Though set at a boy's school and dealing almost exclusively with male characters, the novel addresses universal themes that can engage all readers.
Set at the fictional elite New Hampshire prep school of Devon (based on Knowles's own alma mater, Phillips Exeter Academy) during World War II, A Separate Peace focuses on the relationship between Gene Forrester, the intellectual and somewhat introverted narrator, and his athletic, charismatic roommate Phineas, or Finny. The central event of the novel is Phineas's crippling fall from a tree branch. Gene, who may have caused this fall, starts to equate it with the global state of war as he comes to recognize the dark potential contained within all people.
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