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A Separate Peace is John Knowles's first published novel, released in 1959. The work is Knowles' most widely-known, and is a coming-of-age novel.

Plot summary

Despite their polar personalities, Gene and Phineas make fast friends at Devon: Gene's quiet, introverted intellectual personality matches Finny's more extroverted, carefree, athletic demeanor.

One of Finny's ideas during Gene's "Sarcastic Summer" of 1942 is to create a "Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session," with Gene and himself as charter members. He also creates a game called "Blitz Ball" (from the German blitzkrieg [lightning attack], appropriate as the story is written in a World War II setting). Finny creates a rite of induction by having members jump into the Devon River from a large, high tree.

As the summer progresses Gene becomes resentful of Finny's constant and distracting presence, which Gene feels causes him to flunk an exam. Gene convinces himself that Finny is deliberately trying to destroy Gene's academic career. That night, Finny decides that he and Gene should jump together. While on the limb, with Finny about to jump, Gene bounces the limb.

The only time he shows any anger towards Gene is when Gene first tries to confess to knocking Finny off the tree. Finny refuses to believe it, more wounded by that attempted confession in some ways than he was by the act itself. Upon his return, Finny begins to create a fantasy world of sorts around him to avoid facing the war, whose existence he emphatically denies: "Don't be a sap. There is no war.
The action comes to a head when another student, Brinker Hadley, drags Gene and Finny into a class room and puts them on trial to determine Finny's "casualty." They try to force the two to confront the truth of how and why Finny broke his leg. Leper Lepellier (once soft and quiet, now mentally imbalanced from his experience in the war) is called in, and he recalls the jump as he saw it, saying the two boys moved "like an engine," as in one went up and one went down. Finny runs from the room and falls down a nearby flight of stairs, cleanly breaking his injured leg.

The next morning, Gene sees Finny and they reconcile their differences: Gene admits that he made Finny fall, but only because it came from some impulse he could not control. Finny accepts this quite easily and forgives him, but Gene is still unsure of his excuse and is not sure if he purposely caused Finny's fall. Gene leaves Finny, waiting for Finny to come out of surgery to set the bone, and meets the doctor afterwards. The doctor informs Gene that during the operation some bone marrow from Finny's leg went through his blood stream and to his heart, killing him. Gene takes the news as a shock, but never cries about Finny.

Gene reflects that Finny's death was a result of Gene's hatred and jealousy towards him. He explains that there is a point in everyone's life when they realize that there is evil in the world and that they must fight their inner demons to control themselves. It is at that time when one's innocence is lost forever. Only Finny was innocent, and although this made him unique, Gene believes it eventually led to his demise.