One minute you're worshipping at the feet of your hero-of-the-week, and the next you're eyeing a baseball bat with less-than-benevolent intentions. It's an odd combination of admiration and resentment.
Now, if you've ever competed in ANYTHING, you know that particular feeling well. You know all those stories you see on the news about overzealous soccer moms, irate hockey dads, referees that got beat-up, and cheerleaders with not-so-accidentally twisted ankles? Jealousy makes people do crazy things, especially when it comes to athletics. What is A Separate Peace About and Why Should I Care? (So just think: someday you could write a novel that 1) stands as one hallmark of great modern American literature, and 2) embarrasses the heck out of your high school friends.) Yes, they're still very hard.) Even parts of the plot – like the jumping out of the tree gig, or the character of Phineas – came from Knowles's experiences as a student. (Yes, those marble stairs are still there. His descriptions of the fictional "Devon school" in A Separate Peace are largely based, physically, on the Exeter campus. Like the main character and narrator of A Separate Peace, Knowles was born in the South (West Virginia) and during World War II attended boarding school in New Hampshire, at Phillips Exeter Academy. Speaking of English class, Knowles seems to have followed that old English teacher's adage: write what you know. Just ask any of the high school students who have read it in class. Still, nothing ever topped Knowles's debut A Separate Peace remains his most popular and well-known work. (Things get messy pretty fast, as you might expect from a bunch of ill-supervised adolescents.) Published in 1959, the novel is the first from author John Knowles, who would follow his breakout success with many more novels, short stories, and essays, including a sequel of sorts, Peace Breaks Out. A Separate Peace tells the story of a sixteen-year-old boy at boarding school in New Hampshire during World War II, and the mixed feelings of admiration and jealousy he harbors for his best friend and roommate.
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