419

by Will Ferguson

This book won the Giller Prize this year.  My question is WHY?

I found this book ridiculous and had to force myself to finish it.  The end of the book is even ridiculous and totally unbelievable. It's like the author thought, how many ugly, stupid  things can I put in one book and get away with it.

The story starts with the suicide of a retired man in Calgary. He has fallen for a Nigerian scam and mortgaged his house and savings.  He has taken out an insurance policy just prior to his death but the insurance company refuses to pay because of the suspicion of suicide.  The police look at his email messages and confirm that the man has been taken, and was being threatened by the Nigerian crooks.

The man's son takes revenge by joining a group of people who track and torment these 419ers.  The daughter goes to Nigeria to confront the con artist.

Meanwhile there are side stories:
- about an Independent 419 operator who is forced to become part of a syndicate and turn over most of the money he makes to them;
- about Nigeria being exploited and polluted by foreign oil companies, and
- a young villager who first gets a job working with the oil companies and who later works with thugs to steel the oil.  He also gets involved with a crook who is taking a tanker of stolen oil to sell it for a profit.  They encounter a young pregnant girl along the road and the young man decides to try to help and protect her.   His mother won't let him stay with her in their family village so she sends him to see a cousin in Lagos for assistance... with disasterous results.

The Canadian woman is able to track down her father's con man and get some money out of him.  However, the young villager ends up getting murdered because he isn't successful in killing her.  She gets out of Nigeria, more through dumb luck then intelligence but is harrassed in Canada, her mother doesn't want any of the money she recovers so she sends it to the pregnant women who was brefriended for the care of her child....  She knows the identity of her con man but hasn't turned him into the authorities... why not???  The good guys are killed, the bad guys don't receive justice.... The whole thing is preposterous!!!

I have seen positive reviews of this book.... I don't understand its appeal.