419

Will Ferguson's 419 is the winner of the 2012 Giller Prize.

From the book cover:
A car tumbles through darkness down a snowy ravine.

A woman without a name walks out of a dust storm in sub-Saharan Africa.

And in the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the Internet looking for victims.

Lives intersect. Worlds collide. And it all begins with a single email: "Dear Sir, I am the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help..."

When Laura Curtis, a lonely editor in a cold northern city, discovers that her father has died because of one such swindle, she sets out to track down - and corner - her father's killer. It is a dangerous game she is playing, however, and the stakes are higher than she can ever imagine.

Woven into Laura's journey is a mysterious woman from the African Sahel with scars etched into her skin and a young man who finds himself caught up in a web of violence and deceit.

And running through it, a dying father's final words. "You, I love."

My Review:

I totally see why this novel won the Giller Prize. It deals with a topic that we hear about more and more here in North America - those pesky phishing scams that often target senior citizens. The title '419' comes from the section of the Nigerian criminal code that deals with Internet scams and the obtaining of money by deceit or other illegal means.

Will Ferguson's writing style is easy. 419 isn't one of those books you can't put down. It's the type of book that you're happy to pace yourself with and get to the end when time allows. A few online critics have bashed 419 for having superficial and meaningless one-liners. They compare 419 to Will Ferguson's other  novels,  the memoirs Beyond Belfast, Hitching Rides with Buddha and Canadian Pie about his travels in Ireland, Japan and from Yukon to PEI, respectively, and his satirical novels Happiness™ and Spanish Fly. I've never read any of his works before so I didn't have anything to compare 419, and thus found it to be a satisfying read.

My only real complaint would have to be the ending. I didn't get the answers I was seeking, the ones that compelled me to flip through this 393-page novel. The reader is given back stories for all but one of the main characters in the novel. Oddly enough, the characters current circumstances drives much of the plot, yet the reader does not get even a glimpse of how she came to be in her current situation.

At the end of the day, 419 is still a damn good book.

4/5

Ru

Kim Thúy’s Ru made the 2012 Giller Prize Short List.

From the book cover:
I came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey, when the long chains of firecrackers draped in front of houses exploded polyphonically along with the sound of machine guns.
I first saw the light of day of Saigon, where firecrackers, fragmented into a thousands shreds, coloured in ground red like the petals of cherry blossoms or like the blood of the two million soldiers deployed and scattered throughout the villages and cities of a Vietnam that had been ripped in two.
I was born in the shadow of skies adorned with fireworks, decorated with garlands of light, shot through with rockets and missiles. The purpose of my birth was to replace lives that had been lost. My life's duty was to prolong that of my mother.

My Review:
Based on the author's childhood and immigration to Montreal in the mid-1970s, Ru reads like a series of poems. It can be a bit hard to follow as the plot jumps back and forth in time. Nonetheless, it is an amazing narrative of the experience of Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s.

The book's narrator and protagonist, Nguyen An Tinh, shares her experiences as a member of a  wealthy South Vietnamese family, to her family's flight amidst the danger and uncertainty of the Vietnamese war. The family, along with many of their relatives eventually settle in Quebec. Nguyen's story is in places over-the-top sad. At times I found myself questioning the truth in all of it. On the first page, she claims that she was born to replace the lives lost during the Tet offensive and to prolong her mother's life. In all of the poems that make up the novel, not one illustrated this summary. In fact, her mother seems to be a strong willed woman who was able to adapt quickly to the family's changing circumstances, and was thus able to coach her children to make the most of a new life.

Then there are the sections where she shares the experiences of sex workers, victims of sexual interference and the heritage of the children of Vietnamese women and American soldiers. Having all of these other stories mixed into Nguyen's story gave the novel of feeling of desperation. Like someone who's been without a voice for too many years and all of a sudden has a voice and feels compelled to spew everything least their audience should disappear.

4/5

The Burden

From the book cover:
The burden of one sister's love for her younger sister - whom she's sworn to protect - has a dramatic effect on both their lives.

My Review:
Laura Franklin was a plain girl yearning for her parents' love and attention. When her older brother, Charles, dies of infant paralysis, she is certain that her parents will have no choice but to love her since she's all they got. When they announce that they are going to have another child, she prays that it will be a stupid girl that they won't pay much attention to. Laura gets her wish when her little sister, Shirley, is born. Unfortunately for Laura, Shirley has Charles' eyes which cause their parents to love her that much more. Laura begins to pray that Shirley will be sent to heaven. One night while their parents are away, the house catches fire and Laura makes a split decision to risks her own life to save Shirley. From then on, she vows to love and protect Shirley.

As they grow up, Laura sacrifices her own future in order to make sure that Shirley is happy and safe. Shirley loves her sister in return but feels a tremendous weight on her shoulder from carrying around the expectations that come with being loved.

Laura's love for Shirley goes so far, she ends up murdering her sister's husband to enable her sister to marry the man she thinks she should have married in the first place.

The Burden is my least favourite Mary Westmacott novel so far. I've read four of her six novels so I think I know what I'm talking about.

2/5