The Laying on of Hands (Paperback)

Under the disapproving eye of one of his church superiors, Father Joliffe allows the funeral to descend into a free-for-all as Clive's friends and clients try to understand who he was, and worry over the nature of his mysterious death. Beautifully written in Bennett's laconic, adroit style, The Laying on of Hands suddenly creeps up on the reader as a funny and wise meditation on the big issues of sex, death, religion and HIV/AIDS. --Jerry Brotton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
As memorial services go these days it had been billed as "a celebration", the marrying of the valedictory with the festive convenient on several grounds. For a start it made grief less obligatory, which was useful as the person to be celebrated had been dead some time and tears would have been something of an acting job. To call it a celebration also allowed the congregation to dress down up not down. Clive Dunlop was a masseur of exceptional talents. His "services" were much in demand amongst the great and the good and after his untimely death at the age of 34 they - the film stars and politicians, the writers and publishers, the TV pundits and celebrity chefs - are gathered for his memorial service. The conduct of the service is a great worry for the priest taking the service but it proves to be a test for the congregation. This is Alan Bennett at his absolute best with an exceptional satire. It is a perfect work of fiction but it will give readers the extra frisson of pleasure of identifying many of the characters, including even the masseur. A small masterpiece.

This witty and accomplished novella is set at the memorial service for Clive, who died of mysterious circumstances in Peru. A small number of his friends arrange the service in London, but none of them is aware just how popular Clive, and his services, were, until the mourners begin to arrive, among them pop stars, actors, politicians, and numerous other distinguished personages. Clive was a masseur and he was very good at it. But he was also very good at other, more personal, services. And this is where Alan Bennett's bone-dry sense of humour really comes to the fore, as he describes the congregation running through a gamut of emotions - grief at Clive's death, curiosity about what he died of - and fear that it may be catching. The dissection of folly and pettiness is Bennett's forte, and here he excels in combining mockery of human foibles with a sensitive analysis of our complex reactions to issues of sex and death. Clever, perceptive and amusing at the most unexpected moments, this is a perfect miniature work. (Kirkus UK)

English scriptwriter and story-maker Bennett (The Clothes They Stood Up In, 2001; The Madness of George III) offers three stories about the foibles of being human. At novella length (almost 100 pages), "The Laying On of Hands" opens with the unlikely prospect for humor of a memorial service in a London church. It's being held for the handsome Clive Dunlop, dead at 34, by profession a masseur to the rich and famous (and the not so rich and famous). Cause of death? All suppose it to have been AIDS, a fact that for most of those gathered to mourn and remember Clive is a cause for secret and acute anxiety, since the affable Clive's "professional" net was cast very, very wide. Imagine the relief of all assembled when they discover-during reminiscences about Clive that are invited by the liberal-minded clergyman who's officiating-that the death wasn't from that at all, but from an insect bite. People's relief at such good news can be imagined-and Bennett imagines it with drollery and panache. "Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet" is a slighter-and shorter-affair, about the unconventional but salutary relationship that emerges between a woman and her foot doctor. "Father! Father! Burning Bright," however, brings Bennett to top form again. While his own father was a plumber and man of the earth, Midgely went to university and became a teacher-and always suffered great unease and resentment, feeling he could never live up to whatever son's duty was expected of him (a syndrome that hasn't helped his marriage, by the way). Now that Father has had a sudden stroke and is catatonic, though, the least Midgely can do, what he should do, is be there with his father through the end. So he waits dutifully, for days, at the hospital-only once again, hilariously, to be outfoxed by his fate. Deft, light, observant, and very funny indeed. (Kirkus Reviews)

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