Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

When I first heard about the premise of the book, it seemed like it was going to be a rollicking comedy. Completely missed the mark on that. Indeed, it was humorous in parts, but the overriding them spoke volumes about the rights of people and how far a government can go to regulate its constituents - quite relevant today. The novel takes the form of letters between two cousins, Ella Minnow Pea and Tassie, as well as others associated with the families.

In the middle of the town on an independent island, Nollop,  off the coast coast of South Carolina. The island is devoted to Nevin Nollop, the creator of the phrase, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." The sentence is memorialized by a series of tiles on a monument to Nollop. All is well on the island until the letter z drops from the monument. The High Island Council decides that this is an omen and that Nollop has desired the inhabitants to eliminate the letter from all written and spoken dialog. If a citizen used a word containing that letter, then punishment would be inflicted, escalating at each transgression. Not only did this have far reaching effects on the people, but the library had to purge any books with z. 

As the novel progresses, so do the number of tiles that fall from the statue, creating quite a dilemma for all. Substitute words have to be invented and the islanders become more frustrated and irate at the authoritarian tactics of the council. An underground resistance movement is founded with the goal to find a shorter sentence that uses all the letters of the alphabet so that the council might realize that the tiles falling does not indicate the desire of Nollop to forbid words that contained them. A journalist, Nate Warren, arrives at the island hoping to lend scientific evidence of the reason the tiles are dropping off. Meanwhile, the letters keep getting more enigmatic as Dunn is under the constraint of coming up with words that contain only the approved letters. 

The wordplay throughout the novel is brilliant and puts the reader through his/her paces in deciphering words. This lends humor and farce to the read. However, it like Animal Farm, is political satire, examining how much the freedom of expression of the citizenry can be restricted - book burning and shuttering of libraries. Ella is a strong woman and she perseveres to find a solution. It was a quick, enjoyable and thought-provoking read.