die Seiten sind altersbedingt gebräunt, leichte Kantenbestoßungen, `This is the sort of novel you read compulsivety in a single afternoon then wishyou had taken time to savour; a concise, bittersweet comedy about seven ül-prepared people facing up to the biggest joke of all. A group of North London friends gathers round to give sweet, gay John one last good time before he dies. Jonathan Neale shows how, in their ciumsy attempts at expressing their love and regret for him, they stumble over aches and longings of their own, too long unexpressed. Neale`s sentimentality is nicely spiked with shards of harsh truthtelling, while his comecfy is kept on the humane side of farce. No novel about AIDS will have us rolling in the aisles, but The Laughter of Heroes builds to a Comic climax as satisfactorily wish-fulfilling as anv in Armistead Maupin.` Patrick Gale (vom Einbandrcken) 4l2a