The Happiness Code, the debut novel by Amy Herrick, takes readers on what is often a quirky, colorful and entertaining journey through the lives of her characters, who are living in the New York City of a generation or two hence.

Unfortunately, Herrick's tale ultimately sinks under the weight of her desire to be too clever, by half.

The story focuses intimately on the lives of Arthur and Pinky Sorenson, their son Teddy, their cat Oedipus and an odd assortment of friends and associates.

At the opening of the story, the Sorensons move from their Manhattan apartment to a house in Brooklyn. Arthur loses his job at a bioengineering lab, which is shut down because of concerns about the head of the lab working on illegal research. Arthur finds another job and Pinky convinces him to buy the house. She hopes Arthur will agree to father a second child with her, but he refuses.

Nonetheless, he secretly donates sperm to a co-worker, Marina. Though he is only on friendly terms with Marina, he sympathizes with her past suffering from political oppression, and sees his donation as "an opportunity to make his own small repayment to the common human debt."

He delivers the goods in a jelly jar.

Unfortunately, after having the child, Marina is accidentally killed by an out-of-control van that runs her down on the sidewalk. Her sister Katya is left with the baby and, overwhelmed, she decides to drop him off anonymously in the Sorenson's back yard.

The baby displays a genetic mutation Arthur recognizes from the lab: irrepressible happiness, coupled with a lack of pain and fear (traits which contribute to a long series of near-fatal accidents). Arthur realizes Marina must have introduced this mutation to their artificial conception.

After the baby disappears, kidnapped by the former head of the illegal research, Arthur sets out to rescue the baby and redeem himself in the resentful eyes of Pinky.

Along the way, the story also becomes populated with a host of colorful incidental characters: the snippy neighbor concerned about her prize roses; Arthur's flaky and spiritual jogging buddy; the amorous fireman with a crush on Pinky; and other equally eccentric folk.

Herrick's focus is firmly on the internal lives of her semi-neurotic main characters. Each character displays a hectic and Seinfeld-esque sense of drama, supported by the events of a hectic plot. Pinky, for example, sports a penchant for calling 911 whenever she faces an overwhelming problem. Arthur's mother sends Teddy a water gun, and Teddy must struggle between his desire to play with it and his father's disapproval of guns. Pinky's best friend Fran (a criminal psychiatrist) always answers the intrusive mobile phone calls from her domineering mother so the two of them can kvetch incessantly.

Each character boasts such quirks and conflicts but also remains insightful and clever - perhaps a bit too insightful and clever. Consider the fireman with a crush on Pinky. After helping to rescue the baby from one of his many scrapes, he says:

"You want to keep a very close eye on him. He is a remarkable child. The gods are always a jealous crowd. The fire department will not always be nearby."

Is this the way your neighborhood fireman talks? Alone, this somewhat unusual pronouncement wouldn't amount to a problem. However, the frequency of stilted pronouncements like this results in characters that begin to seem like mouthpieces for Herrick's agenda, rather than flesh-and-blood people.

In having the otherwise wonderful fun of the story spoiled by this type of over-acting, the reader may wish that Herrick had resisted the temptation to show off. Next time, she might benefit from age-old writing advice: "Kill your darlings."

Eric J. Blommel is a freelance writer living in Denver.