Biography/History/American Humor.The first of six books for an Entertainment and Humor Cycle by the award-winning author David Loye, Brave Laughter is the rousing, witty, and inspiring story of nine generations of an unusual American family. From wildly speculative roots among old European nobility to the booming electronic realities of the early 21st century, through the family stories they passed on from generation to generation unfolds the age-old alternation of comedy and tragedy in the lives of a family distinguished by a fierce independence of mind and a rare gift for story telling.The Early Years covers the stories of the family from a speculative beginning as far back as the Vikings, through colonial times in the New World, the founding and pioneering years for America, to the Civil War. The Lake Settlers focuses on the book's archetypal characters'the widowed wife and five children of the ?the bravest revenue officer? and legendary funny story teller, Moses Tully Sanders, as they move north out of Tennessee and Iowa to settle on a small lake in Minnesota. Though different, at the same time the setting, stories, and adventures of The Lake Settlers are sometimes uncanny real life analogues of Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegone tales. A third section, The Children of the Lake, tells of the Jazz Age, Depression, World War II, and late 20th century years of the seven radically different children of Moses? son Clarence, the fiercely independent patriarch of his generation. Brave Laughter evokes a haunting sense of the America that once was, but also'through its powerful portrayal and analysis of the nature of humor'a statement of faith in the future. Through the evolution of American humor as a blend of the frontier perspective characterized by Mark Twain and the ancient tradition of Jewish humor that in the 20th century flowered again in America, Brave Laughter not only provides a pioneering tracking of the evolution of American humor but also a new theory for the powerful impact of humor on human evolution.Brave Laughter evokes a haunting sense of the America that once was. But also'through its portrayal and analysis of the nature of humor, pioneering tracking of the evolution of American humor, and a new theory for the impact of humor on human evolution'this book provides a powerful statement of faith in the future.