A Separate Peace is about two great friends at Devon College, in New Hampshire. The narrator of the story, Gene, walks around his college fifteen years after graduating and has a flashback.
    It was the year 1942, during World War II, when Gene and his roommate Phineas, also known as Finny, were at a summer session in college. Gene and Finny took advantage of the summer session by being careless and by being irresponsible. While being foolish, the two were both jumping from a tree into a river by their college. Finny fell from the tree shattering his leg on the river's bank. Finny became disabled from playing sports because of his terrible accident. To find out what happens to Gene and Finny at college, and what happens to them during the war read, A Separate Peace by John Knowles.