The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society discussion

I'm currently reading...


'You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life You Are Raoul Moat ' by Andrew Hankinson

I'm over halfway through and it looks like another great True Crime book.

In the early hours of 3 July 2010 near Newcastle, Raoul Moat, a 37 year-old bodybuilder, recently released from prison, shot his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend with a sawn-off shotgun before going on the run; his ex would survive but the boyfriend died. Moat would go on to shoot PC Rathband, a police officer (who survived but was permanently blinded – unable to cope with his disability, he committed suicide two years later). On the run for seven days, Moat camped out in the woods of Northumberland. TV tracker Ray Mears was called in. Paul Gascoigne turned up during the police stand-off. Surrounded by armed police, Moat shot and killed himself.

Like Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood', Andrew Hankinson’s 'You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat]' is a non-fiction novel, using letters and tape recordings made by Moat while on the run to recreate his voice and thoughts in a chronological narrative of his final days from his prison release to his death. The result is an uncomfortable, claustrophobic read.

It's a grimly compelling book though, that, through the use of a third person narrative, credibly takes the reader into Moat’s tortured mind. The reader gets to understand (if not excuse) the everyday frustrations that had built up over the years and finally overwhelmed him.

There's a certain amount of repetition as much of the text is taken directly from Moat's own recordings: Samantha Stobbart, his ex girlfriend, means the world to him; the police incessantly harass him; his bad childhood; his bodybuilding; etc. Whilst this gets slightly tedious it also helps inform an obsessive and unstable personality. Moat makes numerous bad choices however devotes himself to justifying what he has done. He has a huge capacity for self-pity as he obsessively chronicles how the council, the police, and the system are out to get him. To avoid Moat’s statements being wholly one-sided, Andrew Hankinson adds factual statements in brackets. This technique reveal Moat as an unreliable narrator who glosses over his own bad behaviour and gradually undermines his testimony. Hankinson reveals a shocking history of domestic violence.

The book's main theme is the outdated ideology of hardman masculinity. Moat had a history of violence and anger. His descriptions of bodybuilding, cage fighting, and working as a bouncer are a glimpse into a self destructive and appalling world.

I should finish it soon.