A touching tale of how three friends attempt to meet the wishes of a young man dying of AIDS by fulfilling one of his boyhood dreams and taking him to Disneyland. During their trip, however, they discover that reality is truly an expert at thwarting dreams and desires.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A first novel about a puppeteer, dying of AIDS, whose circle of ex-lovers and friends decide to take him to Disney World. Neale, an American who's lived in London for 20 years, pulls off a tragicomic success that entertains with a light touch while doing justice to the pathos of its subject. When the story opens, AIDS-afflicted John--deported from China when his medication is discovered--dreams of going to a Tibetan monastery. Instead, he returns to London, to a housing association flat, where his sister Claire tends to him and rounds up The Firm- -ex-lover Paul, and buddies Mark, Babur, and Keith. All try to show love to him and then hit upon the idea of taking him to Disney World, a place his father Bill was never able to take him. (Bill has learned of his son's condition and comes to accept it.) Neale provides sharp portraits of the group, sometimes touching, sometimes funny, and also introduces a Special Agent in Florida who likes to pistol-whip criminals and ``expedite the judicial process.'' Eventually, these two plots meet--the group, including Bill, flies to Florida, but John is deported and goes instead with Paul and Bill to the Bahamas, where they fly with a drug-dealer and get arrested by the Special Agent, who then cuts a deal and lets everybody go in return for drugs and a special favor. Neale manages to walk a thin line by treating such a subject frankly--but also by surrounding it with a lot of engaging humor. A writer to watch. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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