by Mark Dunn
208 pgs, 2001, Anchor Books

When Mark Dunn’s fresh and fabulous little novel “Ella Minnow Pea” was first released, the title was “Ella Minnow Pea: a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable.” That’s quite a mouthful. So, for the paperback version, the title was changed to “Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters.” Succinct, and also clever, for in choosing the word “letters” it describes both the books format and conditions. Confused? You’ll see.

It all starts with the letter “Z.” On the fictitious island of Nollop there stands a monument to the island’s namesake, resident Nevin Nollop, who created the pangram “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” (A pangram is a sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet, and is usually kept to 35 letters in length.) When the letter “Z” falls from the cenotaph, an emergency meeting is called by the townspeople. Should they replace the letter? Is it a sign from a higher power that the letter “Z” is no longer needed?

The general consensus is, yes, it’s a sign, and so an ordinance is passed banning the letter “Z” from all future use, whether written or spoken. “On Wednesday, July 19, the Council, having gleaned and discerned, released its official verdict: the fall of the tile bearing the letter ‘Z’ constitutes the terrestrial manifestation of an empyrean Nollopian desire, that desire most surely being that the letter ‘Z’ should be utterly excised—fully extirpated—absolutely heave-ho’ed from our communal vocabulary.”

As “Ella Minnow Pea” is told entirely in letters and notes from various characters, the letter drops from the book. One such correspondent, a young girl actually named Ella Minnow Pea, writes to her cousin: “I have, in scanning the text of my epistle to you thus far, discovered only three merest uses: in the words ‘gaze,’ ‘immortalized,’ and ‘snooze.’ Would you have lost my meaning should I have chosen to make the substitutions, ‘looked,’ ‘posteritified,’ and ‘sleep?’ What, my dearest Tessie, have we lost? Very little.”

All would probably continue on Nollop quite smoothly if the letter “Z” was the only one to be stricken from use. But shortly after, another letter falls. And then another, and so on. With each accident, the fallen letter is banned from use on the island, and it begins to get trickier for the inhabitants to communicate. People caught using the ostracized letters are subject to public censure, lashings, the stocks and, finally, banishment for repeated offenses.

Pretty soon, Nollop’s citizens struggle to communicate even phonetically. “Ella, Tanya toll me yew were assing aphter me. I am phine… Yor phrent, Georgeanne.” The only resolution to the madness will be the discovery of a new pangram, one that the council deems appropriate. But with so many people banned from the island, can its few remaining citizens come up with one before all is lost?

Mark Dunn has created a delightful little book with “Ella Minnow Pea.” It is a wonderful comment on society and mass hysteria, and the gimmick is fun and wildly clever. A great book to read aloud.