John Knowles
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John Knowles was born on September 16, 1926 in Fairmont, West Virginia and died on November 29, 2001. He was an American novelist, best known for his novel A Separate Peace.
A 1945 graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, Knowles graduated from Yale University as a member of the class of 1949. A Separate Peace is based upon Knowles' experiences at Exeter during the summer of 1943. The setting for The Devon School is a thinly veiled fictionalization of Phillips Exeter. The plot should not be taken as autobiographical, although many elements of the novel stem from personal experience, including Knowles' membership in a secret society and his sustaining of a foot injury while jumping from a tree during society exercises. In his essay, "A Special Time, A Special Place," Knowles wrote:
The only elements in A Separate Peace which were not in that summer were anger, violence, and hatred. There was only friendship, athleticism, and loyalty.
The secondary character Finny (Phineas) was the best friend of the main character, Gene. Knowles has stated that he modeled Finny on David Hackett from Milton Academy, whom he met when both attended a summer session at Phillips Exeter. Hackett was a friend of Robert Kennedy's, under whom he later served in the Justice Department.
Gore Vidal, in his memoir Palimpsest, acknowledges that he and Knowles concurrently attended Phillips Exeter, with Vidal two years ahead. Vidal states that Knowles told him that the character Brinker, who precipitates the novel's crisis, is based on Vidal. "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."
Following his time at Philips Exeter, Knowles spent eight months serving in the Air Force in World War II after which he attended Yale. Early in Knowles' career, he wrote for the Hartford Courant and was assistant editor for Holiday magazine, while he concurrently began writing novels, of which he eventually completed seven.
Knowles' other significant works are Morning in Antibes, Double Vision: American Thoughts Abroad, Indian Summer, The Paragon, and Peace Breaks Out. None of these later works were as well received as A Separate Peace.
A resident of Southampton, New York, Knowles wrote seven novels, a book on travel and a collection of stories. He was the winner of the William Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In his later years, Knowles lectured to university audiences.
[edit] Selected works
- A Separate Peace, London, Secker & Warburg, 1959; New York, Macmillan Co., 1960
- Morning in Antibes; a novel, New York, Macmillan, 1962
- Double Vision; American Thoughts Abroad'', New York, Macmillan, 1964
- Indian Summer, New York, Random House, 1966
- Phineas; six stories, New York, Random House, 1968
- Ballin, New York, Random House, c. 1971
- Spreading Fires, New York, Random House, 1974
- A Vein of Riches, Boston, Little Brown, 1978
- Peace Breaks Out, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981
- A Stolen Past, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983
- The Private Life of Axie Reed, New York: Jesse Grunberg, 1986
- A Special Time, A Special Place, Exeter Academy', 1995 (autobiographical note on Internet)
