Peace Breaks Out

Peace Breaks Out, a 1981 novel by American author John Knowles, is a companion book to his award-winning classic, A Separate Peace. Set in Devon School, the same fictional New Hampshire boys’ boarding school that features in A Separate Peace, the story follows a young, war-weary WWII veteran, Pete Hallam, who has returned to Devon School to teach American history, coach athletics, and find peace.

Instead, Hallam finds that two of his senior students, Wexford and Eric Hochschwender, are immutable enemies whose adversarial relationship leads to violence and tragedy. The title of the novel references German playwright Bertoldt Brecht’s 1939 play, Mother Courage and Her Children, in which a character is dismayed that “peace has broken out,” thus losing them an opportunity to make money. Knowles often uses irony to explore themes of betrayal, war, and jealousy in Peace Breaks Out.

At the start of the school year in the fall of 1945, the 700 boys at the elite Devon School are dismayed that World War II has ended. The seniors especially are feeling let down and purposeless: the war was their future. Now that the enemies abroad have been defeated, their future is empty and uncertain.



Hallam, a 1937 graduate of Devon School, has been scarred by the war in many ways. Looking at old photographs, he contemplates the losses in his life. During the war, he was wounded and taken prisoner. His marriage has fallen apart. His younger brother is dead and many of his friends are also dead or injured. At Devon School, Hallam hopes to find a refuge and a return to the idyllic campus of his memories, but he is coming back a “different man.”

In the first session of Hallam’s American history class, Wexford and Hochschwender get into a vicious debate about the strength and merits of America. Wexford is the Anglo-Irish, sociopathic, privileged editor of the school newspaper, The Devonian. Wexford worries that the evil influences that caused WWII could still emerge in the United States because the U.S. did not experience the same level of destruction and suffering as other countries which saw fighting on their own territory, thereby purging those negative influences. Wexford fears that powerful people could try to use the U.S. for their own purposes. One of these people, Wexford believes, is his nemesis, Hochschwender.

Hockschwender is a neo-fascist Wisconsinite of German descent. He espouses pro-Nazi viewpoints. Hochschwender writes and submits letters to the editor of The Devonian challenging Wexford’s patriotic opinions. Hochschwender has a weak heart which keeps him from participating in sports, and thus from being popular. Both Hockschwender and Wexford are brilliant outsiders at Devon School.



Other boys at the school include Nick Blackburn, an athlete; his brother, Tug; and Cotty Donaldson, the class president and captain of the football team. As the school year progresses, Knowles fleshes out the novel with everyday details of prep school life, including a trip with Hallam and the school ski team to Vermont. Knowles’ focus, however, is on Hallam’s emotional reengagement in life and the dynamic between Wexford and Hochschwender.

Wexford takes personal offense at Hochschwender’s viewpoints and beings a campaign of harassment and bullying against him. Wexford plays on the other students’ need for purpose, taking advantage of their mob mentality by appealing to their emotions rather than reason. Wexford channels the students’ passion and the extreme aggressive nationalism that they poured into WWII into a war against one of their own: Hochschwender. Ironically, the students fall prey to the same kind of fascism that WWII strove to defeat.

Hallam tries unsuccessfully to offer guidance to the boys, not understanding why they want to fight. As a soldier, Hallam realizes the true horrors of war, but even sharing his experiences cannot bring peace, and Wexford continues to whip up animosity against Hochschwender.



Wexford organizes a class of 1946 memorial stained-glass window for the chapel at Devon School. The window honors the school’s alumni who fought and died in WWII. The window is broken, and the students, thanks to Wexford’s successful offensive against Hochschwender, believe that Hochschwender is the vandal. Hochschwender, further persecuted by a group of student vigilantes, dies of a heart attack.

Wexford is the one who actually breaks the window in order to advance his position and implicate Hochschwender. Hallam realizes that Wexford is an “incipient monster,” but nonetheless protects the boys who kill Hochschwender, thus letting Wexford, the plotter and instigator, go free. Yet Hallam worries about the “the horrors” people like Wexford can perpetrate and hopes that someone out there can stop the sociopaths of the world.

Devon School is modeled on the Phillips Exeter Academy, a private New Hampshire preparatory school that Knowles attended from 1942-1944. When his mentor, playwright Thornton Wilder, encouraged Knowles to write about his memories, Knowles drew on his time at the Phillips Exeter Academy, resulting in the novels A Separate Peace and Peace Breaks Out.