Cover of a book showing a foggy park with leafless trees, a grassy field, and the sun shining through the sky. The title reads 'After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis' by Natalie Brown, with a foreword by Adam S. Miller.

After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis

Greg Kofford Books, July 2026

After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis is an exploration of what it means to remain faithful when life no longer follows the promised script. Drawing on personal experience, scripture, and cultural analysis, I examine how many Latter-day Saints inherited expectations that righteousness should lead to happiness, stability, and prosperity—only to discover a future marked by disappointment, grief, and political and economic uncertainty. Rather than offering simplistic answers, After Happiness presents a richer, more resilient vision of faith—one rooted in mourning, courage, adaptation, and trust in God amid life’s upheavals.

  • “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.”

    — Matthew Bowman, Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University

  • “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.”

    — Susan Hinckley, author and co-creator of At Last She Said It

  • “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.”

    — Caroline Kline, Research Assistant Professor, Claremont Graduate University

  • “It's a mistake, Natalie Brown warns us, to confuse goodness with happiness. Christian discipleship is about the former, not the latter.

    She's right.”

    — Adam S. Miller, author of Original Grace

  • “[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, University Professor of English, Brigham Young University

  • “It’s exactly the kind of book that needs to be discussed in reading groups and talked about at the water cooler.”

    — Cynthia Winward, author and co-creator of At Last She Said It