A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Knowles, John. A Separate Peace; A Novel. New York: Macmillan, 1960.

Two boys in a New England boarding school try to find out what bravery can mean for those on the sidelines during wartime, and in their imaginations they create a separate peace.

AWARDS

Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters
1960 William Faulkner Award for the Most Promising First Novel
1961 National Association of Independent Schools Award

REVIEW

Phineas is the bravest and the least conventional person in boarding school at Devon prep. Gene is his best friend and also an athlete, but he’s a brain, too. While the schoolboys are following Phineas’s ideas, Gene is wondering what it means that he’s the best friend of such a popular person. Then Phineas decides to form The Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session, a secret club that makes dangerous jumps into the river. Meanwhile the school is discussing World War II, which has just broken out. Some want to finish school and join the army, while others are scared to be drafted. Not Phineas, though, because he knows there’s no war at all, and he convinces Gene to believe the same thing. When Phineas and Gene climb the tree to make a jump together, someone gets seriously injured, and what unfolds is a subtle allegory about loyalty and bravery.

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