A few years ago in the Fairfield University bookstore, I came
across a lovely little book called Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn.
It’s just the kind of book that fans of language like my readers
would enjoy! It’s an interesting concept. The entire novel is in
the form of letters. It takes place on a fictitious island
nation off the coast of South Carolina called Nollop. The island
is named after Nevin Nollop, author of the pangram, “The quick
brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” A pangram is a sentence that
uses every letter in the alphabet. The island worships Nevin
Nollop’s incredible, short pangram so much that he becomes the
center of their lives. In the center of town, they have a statue
built in his honor, with a monument documenting each letter in
each word. All is well — until the Z falls off. The nation
decides to consider it a sign from above and ban the usage of
the letter Z. Consequently, the letter Z disappears from Ella’s
letters and the novel as a whole. As time goes on, more letters
start falling,