THE MONUMENT MAKER

The only interesting thing about this pedestrian novel of old-fashioned notions of immortality and fatherhood is that it is still being (re)written. The author of course endorses the 68 year-old Witt Tyler's building of a 350 foot (at the base) limestone pyramid in some no-horse town in South Texas, just as easily as he romanticizes the old lecher's marriage to a teen-age Mexican girl, Noella, who had visions of the Virgin Mary. The millionaire Witt is the white knight the Madonna of the Windmill sends to drag Noelia off into the sunset, despite what the unimaginative priests say about the nature of her religious hallucinations. All is well and Witt dies happy, leaving behind half a son (it must be a son) and half a pyramid with his young wife to carry on the immensity of his ego and vanity.