I truly enjoyed “Ella Minnow Pea,” a first novel by playwright Mark Dunn. By the time the book drew to a close, I was astounded and impressed by the ingenuity, cleverness, and humor of this author.
Off the coast of South Carolina is a fictional island called Nollop. It was founded by a man named Nevin Nollop who, you will be greatly interested to know, was the inventor of the sentence, “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs.” Because of Nollop’s love of language, everyone on the island is very literate, uses a variety of long words to express themselves, and is quite good at writing letters.
Our two main characters are Ella and Tassie, cousins who live on different parts of the island. The entire book is comprised of the letters they exchange, and we also see a note here and there from someone else.
Our story begins with an interesting happening. The statue of Nevin Nollop that has long stood in the town square, adorned with his famous sentence spelled out in tile, is a landmark to everyone in Nollop. When the tile bearing the letter “Z” falls off the statue, the council decides that Nollop is speaking from the grave and wants them all to abolish the letter “Z.” Those found using that letter will be punished and possibly even thrown off the island.
All the books in the library must go, as they each, somewhere, contain “that letter.” The beekeeper has a terrible time of it – how is he supposed to talk about his occupation without discussing the noise his bees make? The townspeople slowly become accustomed to the change, and then the letter “Q” falls off.
As the alphabet is banned one letter at a time, the Nollopians realize that their very way of life is being threatened, the removal of one liberty at a time. I’m amazed at how the author continued to convey his meaning as letter after letter is removed. Finally, the townspeople band together to come up with a solution. The conclusion is unexpected and hilarious, well justifying the build-up of several pages.
I first thought this was going to be a young adult novel, but the language used throughout is very educated – I would say post-collegiate – and I think it’s best suited to adults. I confess, there were a few words I didn’t know. (The shame!)
If you’re in the mood for a thoroughly original, entertaining, and perfectly clean book, snatch this one up right away.
(This book was published in 2001 by MacAdam/Page Publishing.)
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