‘Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters’ by Mark Dunn is an interesting exploration of the English language. The town of Nollop serves as the backdrop for Dunn’s tale. The characters struggle to survive under the hardships that occur when a statue that contains town native son Nevin Nollop’s sentence “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” begins to literally crumble and fall. The council that leads the town decides that the falling of the letters off of the statue that contains all 26 letters (either singularly or in multiples) portends a unique fate for the inhabitants of the town. According to the council, each letter that is absent from the statue must in turn be absent from daily usage in either spoken or written form by any resident of the town, with punishments arising if anyone goes against this edict. There are those, however, who disagree, feeling that as the letters drop, it is Nollop’s way of saying the letters are not being used enough, and the language is suffering from not enough usage. The only caveat to the new rule is for those ages seven and younger. Their being exempt from the new statute is the only saving grace for the town as those who are against the new determination seek to find a way to resolve the issue.

The language used in the story seemed somewhat more complex than necessary at times. More simplistic language might have served the story better, but with the loss of each respective letter that fell from the statue, the English language does indeed become progressively more frustrating. Therefore, it is understandable that the language used was not always so easy to follow.

An area that was not quite as easy to follow were the characters who were writing the letters that made up the story. Any reader should be able to tell that some of the characters were related, some were just trying to help the cause, and others were against it, but the connections were not always so clear. This wasn’t absolutely necessary, though, as the story worked well anyway, but it would have been better to have the characters’ relationships clearly focused as the story progressed.

Any lover of the English language will be intrigued by this story. It may remind some of the concept used in ‘Flowers for Algernon,’ when the main character could not speak so clearly, prompting the story to be written in that way, until that same character found a way to make his voice clearer so readers didn’t have any trouble following his line of thinking. ‘Ella Minnow Pea’ provides a strong reality check, showcasing how sometimes the people in charge use their power poorly, while the masses try to make sense of why their interpretations fail to count.

You can find ‘Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters’ by Mark Dunn here.