The Hate Game Screaming in the Silence A Memoir

Winner - 2025 Independent Author Awards (Memoir & Historical Nonfiction)

Runner-Up - 2025 London Book Festival (Memoir)

Winner - 2024 Literary Titan Book Award

They shoved his head into the toilet-a baptism of dirty water and urine. They drew a Star of David on his forehead. And that was just another day at school.

Set against the brutal corridors of 1970s England, The Hate Game: Screaming in the Silence is a raw, darkly funny memoir of trauma, resilience, and reluctant transformation.

Gary Trew didn't grow up in a warzone, but Knoll Boys School came close. There, violence was routine, bullying was institutional, and anti-Semitic torment was just part of the curriculum. Teachers turned a blind eye. Survival meant silence.

But beyond the school gates? Chaos, contradictions-and love. A scripture-quoting mother with a flair for curses. A pipe-smoking father who barely spoke but never stopped caring. A house full of odd rituals, awkward hugs, and flashes of humour in the darkness.

Told with searing honesty and wicked wit, The Hate Game is more than a memoir of abuse-it's a story of defiance, emotional survival, and growing up working-class in a country that didn't care.

If you loved Educated, A Child Called "It", Angela's Ashes, or The Glass Castle, prepare to meet a voice you won't forget.