After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis

by Natalie Brown

Available July 21, 2026

• “A heartfelt reflection on reimagining faith when our inherited spiritual roadmaps lead to dead ends. It’s exactly the kind of book that needs to be discussed in reading groups and talked about at the water cooler.” — Cynthia Winward
• “Natalie Brown is one of the Latter-day Saint community’s wisest and most original thinkers. ” — Matthew Bowman
• “Cuts through the limitations of a modern LDS happiness discourse that has grown increasingly individualistic, reclaiming instead a radical, collective ethos of empathy and community.” — Caroline Kline
• “Provides a highly intelligent, movingly heartfelt, and deeply faithful meditation on the risks of conflating the gospel’s message of happiness with the image of happiness mediated by an American society under increasing stress.” — Matthew Wickman

  
Also available in ebook for Kindle, Apple, Google Play, and, Kobo.

Preview the volume here.

Book Description:

After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis by Natalie Brown is a thoughtful and timely exploration of what it means to remain faithful when life no longer follows the promised script. Drawing on personal experience, scripture, and cultural analysis, Brown examines how many Latter-day Saints have inherited expectations that righteousness should lead to happiness, stability, and prosperity—only to discover that real life is often marked by disappointment, grief, and uncertainty. In this deeply reflective work, she challenges readers to reconsider easy formulas for happiness and to confront the spiritual crisis that emerges when familiar promises seem to fail.

Rather than offering simplistic answers, Brown presents a richer, more resilient vision of faith—one rooted in mourning, courage, adaptation, and trust in God amid life’s upheavals. With insight and honesty, she invites readers to see suffering not as evidence of failure but as an essential part of spiritual growth and discipleship. Both intellectually engaging and emotionally resonant, After Happiness is a compelling guide for anyone seeking hope, meaning, and a deeper faith in a world where certainty has given way to complexity.

Praise for After Happiness:

“Finally, someone has stepped into the conversational void about the LDS prosperity gospel! Brown beautifully weaves her own personal stories with a sharp analysis of the current moment. Touching and timely, After Happiness is a heartfelt reflection on reimagining faith when our inherited spiritual roadmaps lead to dead ends. It’s exactly the kind of book that needs to be discussed in reading groups and talked about at the water cooler.” — Cynthia Winward, cohost, At Last She Said It podcast

“At last, a book for Latter-day Saints who have struggled to find the happiness they expected despite a lifetime of following the recommended formulas. Framing our entire human experience within a divine ‘Plan of Happiness’ may make it too easy to conclude that unhappiness must be indicative of personal—perhaps even moral—failing. Natalie Brown’s deft combination of her own stories with carefully compiled research makes After Happiness just the medicine members like me have been waiting for.” — Susan Hinckley, author and cocreator of the At Last She Said It podcast

“It is a rare and vital thing for an author to tackle the profound question of what constitutes the good life, but Natalie Brown does so brilliantly. After Happiness cuts through the limitations of a modern LDS happiness discourse that has grown increasingly individualistic, reclaiming instead a radical, collective ethos of empathy and community. This book delivers a transformative gift: a vision of Mormonism that illuminates a path forward to a more robust, compassionate, and expansive tradition.” — Caroline Kline, Research Assistant Professor, Claremont Graduate University

“Natalie Brown is one of the Latter-day Saint community’s wisest and most original thinkers. She asks hard questions of the tradition, she takes suffering and fear seriously, but she also refuses to surrender to despair. And that means she can see, and offer to us, hope.” — Matthew Bowman, Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University

“Natalie Brown is a gifted cultural critic. And in this book, she provides a highly intelligent, movingly heartfelt, and deeply faithful meditation on the risks of conflating the gospel’s message of happiness with the image of happiness mediated by an American society under increasing stress. Disentangling the two is difficult work, but Brown shows why that work is more necessary today than ever.” — Matthew Wickman, the University Professor of English, Brigham Young University

About the Author:

Natalie Brown is a lifelong Latter-day Saint based in Boulder, Colorado. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago, a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law, and a PhD from Columbia University in English and Comparative Literature. She practiced law before becoming a full-time writer and parent. Her work appears in The Salt Lake Tribune, Wayfare, By Common Consent, and elsewhere. She is the editor of a critical edition of Susa Young Gates’s John Stevens’ Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon War (BCC Press, 2024). She and her husband, Michael, are the happy parents of two boys.

More Information:

162 pages
ISBN 978-1-58958-846-2 (paperback)