Customer Reviews

419: A Novel

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I think of Canadian author Will Ferguson, it is his travel memoirs that immediately spring to mind. That and his rich sense of humour (He has won The Leacock Medal for Humour numerous times.)

419 takes us in a completely different direction....

We've all received them. In fact Barrister Salvadore Gallarto sent me one this morning. Can I help him with repatriating 8.5 million euros? It's a simple matter really. I'm sure that every reader has had one of these land in our inbox. And we promptly trash them. But what if you didn't?

Laura Curtis is heartbroken when her elderly father Henry is killed in an auto accident. But on further investigation, it appears he deliberately left the road. Why would he do such a thing? Further digging by the local Calgary police on his computer uncovers the truth - he had become embroiled in a 419 scam...."I can help...." (419 is the Nigerian criminal code for "obtaining money or goods under false pretenses.)

On the other side of the world in Nigeria, we follow the story of Winston - a 419 scammer. And Amina - a young pregnant woman walking her way across the country, escaping from something. And Nnamdi, a young man from the depths of the Niger Delta.

In the beginning, I wondered how these disparate stories would tie together, but Ferguson deftly weaves an absolutely riveting plot. The criminal underbelly of Nigeria is presented in all of it's seediness. But really, it is the story of Nnamdi that captured me the most. His story is given the most page space and he is the character I felt I 'knew' the most. The effect of the oil industry on a country and its' people is disheartening. The death of her father changes Laura as well. She becomes single minded, after years of staying safely within the confines of the small world she has created. She decides to go to Nigeria and find the man responsible for her father's death. I didn't feel I really got to know Laura and found her sudden about face to be a bit of a stretch.

419 is many things - a mystery, a thriller and a social commentary. I turned the final page with a sense of sadness. Varying degrees, but for most of the characters. Ferguson's tale of the story behind one of these schemes brings a very human face to what most see as a simple nuisance entry handled by a quick tap on the delete button.

An unusual, introspective and recommended read.

Will Ferguson may be known for works that feature humour and may otherwise be interpreted as lighthearted, maybe lightweight. 419 is none of these.

Starting with a "what if" scenario . . . What if someone actually responds to and tries to help one of these people in a Nigerian e-mail scam? From there we get a tour of both ends of the scenario in a well-researched, gripping read that incorporates its knowledge seamlessly into a well-constructed narrative. This is a book that will surprise you, teach you and make you think. It will make you sad.

But it gets us in touch with something that is real, that is part of the world we live in, and for that we can be grateful. And we can safely conclude that Will Ferguson is not only a humour writer, he is a simply a great writer.

Everyone gets them. You know, those pesky spams with a Nigerian address promising you a good return if only you will allow funds to be deposited into your account. The spam speaks in terms of desperation and the urgent need to help someone in Nigeria unlock a family wealth. Will Fergusan takes us on the ride where someone (the sucker that is born every day) actually follows through with a response to the spam. He opens the book with a thrill ride and accident in Canada. It is the investigation of the accident that leads his family to travel to Nigeria. It is an opportunity for a look into the life of "normal" life in Nigeria and get into the down and dirty of corruption at many levels. What makes the 419 criminal? Theft can be theft of resources, theft of property, or the transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor.

The book is informative as a travelog to a place one would not normally thinks as a vacation hot spot. Nigeria is a poor country, rich in resources but poor in real management for the people. 419 refers to the Nigerian criminal code dealing with theft. I suspect Will Fergusan is referring to the Big Oil and the Nigerian government itself as the criminals. Everyone else is a victim. Great, easy read and recommended.

Will Ferguson is a Canadian writer based in Calgary, who is best known for his works of humour and his travel writing. In his novel 419, he undertakes what is arguably a more ambitious task, and succeeds brilliantly.

419 opens with a winter car crash just outside Calgary. A cold evening in one of the coldest countries in the world. The story continues in the hot sands of Nigeria. In the past, it might have been said that this cannot be the same story.

But in fact, 419 is in many ways a meditation on the nature of globalization. The story traces the path of Laura, as she investigates the untimely and suspicious death of her father, an investigation that leads her to the opposite end of the world.

This is not the Disney version of globalization, `It's a small world after all', much less Coca-Cola's `I'd like to teach the world to sing.' It is the version of globalization in which Nigeria is just as connected to Calgary as it is to Africa - by oil, by money, by the Internet. And rather than a rising tide lifting all boats, it is a race to the bottom in which desperate people take desperate measures, and organized crime has global reach and deadly consequences.

419 follows the apparently disconnected paths of Laura, Winston, Amina and Nnambi, to reveal that they are in fact connected. In this the book may remind some readers of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's film Babel, especially since Ferguson is a master of description, and 419 has a very cinematographic feel to it.

Ferguson's keen powers of observation, honed in his travels around the world, serve him well, and 419 is an intriguing novel that builds to an enthralling conclusion. Recommended!

Mr. Ferguson, Thank you so much for this amazing book. I've read most of your others and was not at all sure what to expect of this one. I now know why you were nominated for a Giller....it is much deserved with this effort. Please more, sir! -a fellow Calgarian

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author wrote about the problems with oil development in Nigeria and the way it affects the local population. This was in addition to the email scams that we hear so much about. I haven't read very many books that look at the problems in Nigeria (Little Bee being the only other one) so this was very interesting to me.

Thoroughly good read, and very inventive plot! Highly entertaining, and as predicted, fast-paced! The pity I felt for the way the delta dwellers of Nigeria have been treated took me by surprise!

The Canadian humourist and high-adventure novelist Will Ferguson has written a gripping tale about a Canadian elderly man who gets caught up in the Nigerian 419 e-mail scam and the efforts of his daughter to recover his money. The reader is introduced to the complex and seamy world of consumer fraud in a way that literally boggles the imagination. While we might be able to appreciate the extent of the victim's credulity in signing over his and his wife's life savings to fraudsters, unseen and thousands of miles away, the extent to which this elaborate con is hatched and sprung is hard to fathom as to who the perpetrators are. To uncover that mystery, Ferguson has the daughter engaged in some major personal sleuthing, involving the Internet, to bring the thieves to justice. As the story shows, this is no small feat. Much of what Laura accomplishes to right a terrible wrong is done with the grudging help of the police and friends. There are stretches in the story where the description of this personal detective work seems to be cut short. Suddenly there is Laura in the middle of the Niger delta, courting extreme danger but with a fool-proof plan to confront the scammers. Such gaps are excusable because Ferguson is anxiously trying to get his character from Alberta to Nigeria through an international maze of corruption and ineptitude. What really made this novel worth the read was Ferguson's efforts to present another side to the big hunt for the bad boys. Interlarded with Laura's high-powered adventure is a running account of how a young man (Nmandi) and his extended family eke out an impoverished life amidst the oil platforms of the Delta. It is in this crime-infested environment that the 419 scam thrives in an attempt to get money to move up the social ladder and get out of this hell-hole. Being able to bring these two important threads together is the main strength of this book. Laura learns to truly see her need for justice through the eyes of those who have succeeded in ripping her and her family off. What she discovers is that con artists are not limited to Africa and a 419 scam.

I found this book disapointing. I was looking forward to it , having lived for years in Lagos, but could not connect with it in the way I expected. Has some of the flavour if Nigeria but could have a lot more

This is a story about Internet fraud and while I know this does happen I found it a bit 'over the top' at some points. The story of Nigeria however, is very interesting which tended to put my feelings of the over dramatic parts in the background.