Discrimination towards others is sometimes based on as little as difference of appearance or culture and fuelled by intolerance. When confronted by it, do we turn our backs and walk away, or take a stand beside the oppressed?

1985 and Pat the narrator returns to his small wheat town to settle his father's estate. He recalls the events when he first moved there from Sydney as an eight year old in 1955 with twin brother Doug and his GP father.

Season of Hate is the moving story of the friendship between the boys and Johnny, the mute Aboriginal teenager. In those first two years in their seemingly ideal world, the boys are exposed to the best and worst of human nature as they become aware of the undercurrents of discrimination and racial bigotry that erupt into violence.

In particular, that one night where Pat's own life is challenged. The night where one wanton act places the town's very livelihood in jeopardy.