Laughter of Heroes

Flashes of humor and a gentle shrewdness about human character rescue Neale's first novel from becoming maudlin as it explores a man with AIDS and his well-intentioned friends and family. John Parsons, an English puppeteer, silently yearns to travel to a Kashmiri monastery to find inner peace before he dies, but ``the Firm,'' his friends Paul, Mark, Babur and Keith, as well as Claire, his sister, surprise him with plans for a pilgrimage of another sort: they're all going to Disney World for the glorious vacation John missed out on as a child. John's deteriorating health and U.S. laws prohibiting the entry of people with AIDS present obstacles requiring an imaginative solution to give John and his favorite confidante, hand puppet Andy the Mouse, a chance to hobnob with Mickey. When it is not caught up in its shallow subplot involving a U.S. drug-enforcement agent, this bittersweet tale probes not only the challenges of dying but also those of being alive: unfinished business between John and his ex-lover Paul, the inability of John's father to discuss John's gayness or his disease, the way in which the Firm regards Claire as not quite one of the group. (Nov.)