Tim Wynveen gives fair warning that his debut novel, Angel Falls, is not going to be a shiny, happy affair. In the prologue, the narrator Benoni informs us that his name, translated from Hebrew, means “son of my sorrow,” and then goes on to admit that, “A name like that takes some getting used to; but I think now that it suits me quite well.”

An understatement if ever there was one. Ben is, unquestionably, one of the most depressing narrators ever put into print, making Angel Falls an unyielding bleakfest from beginning to end.

Ben’s first memory is of breaking his mother’s Delft figurine and his mother cutting herself badly when she picks up the pieces. This is our introduction to the extremely dysfunctional Van Buskierke family. The father is a severely depressed refrigerator repairman and the mother is a deranged housewife. Ben, the only child, largely unloved, completes the triumvirate.

Ill-fated doesn’t even begin to describe the misfortunes that fall on Ben’s life. His father commits suicide, his mother goes crazy, he can’t relate to women on a sexual level, his grandfather harbours a dark secret, his mother miscarries, his best friend moves away, his wife cheats on him, he can’t love his daughter, his career as a musician is completely unfulfilling. Page after page, Ben becomes a black hole for happiness, sucking up the slightest hint of positive karma and transforming it into pathos.

This relentless downer of a novel is rarely engaging. From Ben’s childhood in Wilbury to his life as a musician in Toronto, we are witness to a parade of misfortune, but never really get to know any of the characters, the result being that Angel Falls reads more like a newspaper account from some faraway land than a particular and touching story.