Nominated as one of America s best-loved novels by PBS s The Great American Read. An 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. 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.