In his later years, Knowles lectured to university audiences. He was the winner of the William Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. None of these later works were as well received as A Separate Peace.Ī resident of Southampton, New York, Knowles wrote seven novels, a book on travel and a collection of stories. Knowles' other significant works are Morning in Antibes, Double Vision: American Thoughts Abroad, Indian Summer, The Paragon, and Peace Breaks Out. 'We have been friends for many years now,' Vidal said, 'and I admire the novel that he based on our school days, A Separate Peace.' Vidal states that Knowles told him that the character Brinker, who precipitates the novel's crisis, is based on Vidal. Gore Vidal, in his memoir Palimpsest, acknowledges that he and Knowles concurrently attended Phillips Exeter, with Vidal two years ahead.

Knowles took to his grave the secret of whether Finny was all a part of his imagination, or an actual friend whose true identity was never spoken. The secondary character Finny (Phineas) was the best friend of the main character, Gene. There was only friendship, athleticism, and loyalty. The only elements in A Separate Peace which were not in that summer were anger, violence, and hatred.

In his essay, 'A Special Time, A Special Place,' Knowles wrote: The plot should not be taken as autobiographical, although many elements of the novel stem from personal experience. The setting for The Devon School is a thinly veiled fictionalization of Phillips Exeter. A Separate Peace is based upon Knowles' experiences at Exeter during the summer of 1943. Fairmont, West Virginia, was an American novelist, best known for his novel A Separate Peace.Ī 1945 graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, Knowles graduated from Yale University as a member of the class of 1949W. Like the war itself, what happens between the two friends one summer robs these guys and their world of their innocence. Phineas is a reckless athlete who is attractive and taunts others. Gene is an introverted, lonely intellectual. A Separate Peace is a horrific and brilliant fable about the dark side of adolescence set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II. A Separate Peace has been a bestseller in the United States for nearly thirty years, and it is ageless in its depiction of youth during a time when the entire country was losing its innocence to World War II.

PBS's The Great American Read named it one of America's best-loved novels.

A separate peace online book