A brilliant scientist invents a s wristwatch device that electrically triggers laughter in the brain and forever changes the human condition. When his best friend and public double is murdered on live television, he goes into hiding for five years and finally emerges to reunite with the woman he loves and take back his life, only to be arrested and accused of his friend's murder.

* Quarterfinalist, ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Competition 2020 - 2021

SYNOPSIS:

My novel, ELECTRIC LAUGHTER (Science Fiction 79,850 words) is a love story between a neuroscientist who creates the cure for sadness with a device that triggers laughter in the brain and a gifted cellist who suffers from Synesthesia with a sight/sound fusion. It’s also a psychological thriller that illustrates how technology has profoundly changed the human condition when the Electric Laughter device is mysteriously altered, it becomes more than a cure for sadness; it becomes a weapon of manipulation that can trigger murderous rage in the brain with the simple press of a button at one’s wrist.

When the electric laughter device is first introduced, it catapults the world into a surreal state of unfounded giddiness. Joe's life becomes unmanageable due to his overwhelming fame, fortune, and non stop media intrusion. When he hires his best friend to undergo extensive plastic surgery so he can convincingly become Joe’s public double, his hopes for getting his life back are soon destroyed. Joe falls in love with a gifted cellist, Angelica who suffers from a rare brain anomaly called, Synesthesia (sight/sound fusion), and as he’s customizing an electric laughter device to fit her unusual brain, he realizes his grave mistake and the lie that he will have to maintain indefinitely. Within a year of their ‘public double’ existence, Graham-as-Joe gets assassinated on live TV, which forces Joe to go into hiding in order to save his life and to protect Angelica’s life. After Joe witnesses Graham’s murder, he quickly retreats to a brownstone instructed by a note from Graham, which is fully equipped with the things he needs, as if his years of isolation were anticipated. Throughout the novel, the murder scene unravels at various intervals, revealing new information and different perspectives.

The novel opens five years after Graham’s murder on the day that Joe has decided to reenter the world to hear Angelica play with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. At the heart of the novel lies their love story, the purest depiction of the human condition. The two of them connect energetically during her brilliant performance, even though she doesn’t know it’s really Joe in the audience who has captivated her attention. Before Joe can go backstage, he’s found out and arrested for Graham’s murder, intercepted by his longtime lawyer and business manager, Sturgis who promises to help him. Once behind bars, Joe experiences the perversion of his invention, an electric jolt that triggers murderous rage instead of laughter in the brain. As his trial gets underway, it appears that Joe may spend the remainder of his life in jail or in a mental institution. As a byproduct of her rare brain anomaly, Angelica has psychic abilities, which she taps into in order to help Joe, combined with her Latina ancestors and their Magic Realism tradition. Angelica solves the mystery behind Graham’s death and the plot to murder Joe, which implicates Sturgis. In the end, Joe goes free and he and Angelica are finally reunited.

ELECTRIC LAUGHTER: NOVEL