n American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to World War II.
Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read.
Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.
Industry Reviews
Aubrey Menen I think it is the best-written, best-designed, and most moving novel I have read in many years. Beginning with a tiny incident among ordinary boys, it ends by being as deep and as big as evil itself. Warren Miller Mr. Knowles has something to say about youth and war that few contemporary novelists have attempted to say and none has said better. The Observer A model of restraint, deeply felt and beautifully written. National Review A masterpiece.
