Gene was a lonely, introverted intellectual.  Phineas was a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete.  What happened between them at school one summer  during the early years of World War II is the  subject of A Separate Peace. A  great bestseller for over thirty years--one of the  most starkly moving parables ever written of the  dark forces that brood over the tortured world of  adolescence.
"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." -- Aubrey  Menen

"A quietly vital and cleanly  written novel that moves, page by page, towards a  most interesting target." -- Truman  Capote

"Is he the successor to Salinger for  whom we have been waiting so long? --  Encounter.

"A masterpiece."  -- National Review.