This was the tree, and it seemed to me standing there to resemble those men, the giants of your childhood, whom you encounter years later and find that they are not merely smaller in relation to your growth, but they are absolutely smaller, shrunken by age. In this double demotion the old giants have become pygmies while you were looking the other way.

He attended St. Early in Knowles's 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. In his home town Knowles’ father was the vice president of a coal company and they received a steady income affording them a decent standard of living.

John Knowles (September 16 1926 – November 29 2001) was an American novelist best known for his novel A Separate Peace. He died in 2001 at the age of 75.