Natalie Brown. After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2026. 160 pp. Paperback: $18.95. ISBN: 978-1-58958-846-2.
Reviewed by Chad L. Nielsen
The cultural and theological landscape of modern Latter-day Saint thought has long been dominated by a mid-century, post-war triumphalism—a structural optimism that seamlessly fused the “Plan of Happiness” with the economic expansion and domestic ideals of suburban America. In her timely and provocatively titled volume, After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis, Natalie Brown argues that this formulaic, transactional model of faith is not only historically contingent but increasingly untenable in our contemporary era of systemic decay. Writing with a sharp, clear voice, Brown invites the reader to look beyond the commodified “scripts” of prosperity and instead to construct a theology capable of enduring structural collapse. The result is a concentrated, occasionally anxiety-inducing, but ultimately therapeutic recalibration of the relationship between faith, community, and existential disappointment.
Deconstructing the Mid-Century “Plan of Happiness”
The first part of After Happiness provides a sobering, realistic diagnosis of the socio-economic and political crises currently dismantling the structural scaffolding of American life. From the erosion of democratic institutions and the hyper-stratification of wealth to the post-pandemic isolation of hollowed-out civic spaces, Brown maps a landscape in which the traditional milestones of middle-class success have been rendered largely inaccessible. For Latter-day Saints, this national crisis is experienced as an institutional and cultural rupture.
Brown’s primary analytical target is the late-twentieth-century church culture that conflated obedience to gospel formulas with the guarantee of earthly happiness and domestic stability. Under her lens, the 1995 “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” is historically situated as a document that elevated a complementarian model of gender and labor that relied on the unique, fleeting economic affordances of post-war America. When these formulas are preached as eternal imperatives while the material conditions required to realize them evaporate, the result is an unacknowledged crisis of faith. Brown argues that this transactional “prosperity theology” has left members structurally ill-equipped to handle grief, neurodiversity, or financial failure, often shaming those who cannot perform the required aesthetic of domestic bliss.
Susa Young Gates and the Erasure of Plural Marriage
One of the book’s most original and sophisticated chapters utilizes a historical-literary analysis of early Latter-day Saint fiction to demonstrate how these domestic scripts were originally constructed. Brown examines Susa Young Gates’s novel John Stevens’ Courtship—originally serialized in 1895–1896 and revised for book publication in 1909. Gates wrote during the traumatic, transitional decade following the Woodruff Manifesto, when the Church was under intense federal pressure to abandon polygamy and assimilate into the mainstream American political economy. By comparing the two editions, Brown reveals a deliberate, strategic erasure. In the original serial, plural marriage is presented as the natural, divinely sanctioned resolution to the novel’s romantic conflicts. In the 1909 revision, however, Gates systematically expunged these polygamous elements, retroactively constructing a narrative of monogamous domesticity designed to prove Latter-day Saint respectability to a hostile nation. Brown uses this case study to show how Latter-day Saint culture has historically sanitized and revised its own history to survive external crises. This historical perspective is invaluable; it reminds the reader that the “traditional” gender and family norms currently treated as static, eternal doctrines were actually pragmatic, twentieth-century innovations designed to navigate a specific historical transition.
Nephi’s Off-Script Exile
To find a theological model for our current era of transition, Brown turns to the Book of Mormon, offering a provocative reinterpretation of Nephi. Traditionally presented as the untroubled archetype of unwavering obedience, Nephi is reframed by Brown as a deeply traumatized exile who must continually adapt his faith as his expectations of happiness are systematically dismantled.
Brown draws a stark contrast between Nephi and his older brothers, Laman and Lemuel. In her reading, Laman and Lemuel’s rebellion is not born of simple wickedness, but of a rigid, conservative nostalgia for the institutional security and wealth of Jerusalem. Because they fail to let their theological frameworks evolve, they remain fixated on a past that has already been destroyed, ultimately damaging their own future in the process. Nephi, conversely, exhibits the “psychological flexibility” required to go “off script.” He obeys commandments that violate his inherited ethical boundaries—most notably the slaying of Laban—and learns to find “tender mercies” and a more expansive, international covenant in the midst of a barren wilderness and a fractured family. Nephi’s resilience lies in his willingness to mourn, to accept that his descendants will fail, and to find meaning in a relationship with God that is entirely decoupled from earthly prosperity.
Conclusion
After Happiness is a courageous and essential work of cultural criticism and philosophical theology. By refusing to retreat into defensive apologetics or easy, positive platitudes, Natalie Brown has provided a mature, clear-eyed roadmap for Latter-day Saints navigating the cultural and economic ruptures of the twenty-first century. It is a book that successfully rescues the lived experience of grief, disappointment, and structural injustice from the margins of church discourse, reframing them as the very places where a genuine, non-transactional discipleship is forged. For anyone seeking a faith that is larger than the post-war American dream, After Happiness is an inspiring guide.
For info on more books being published in 2026, see Mormon Studies Books in 2026.
Comments
9 responses to “A Review: After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis”
I think we have to remember that the proclamation was not only a warning about the future–it also came on the heels of the most socially disruptive era in U.S. history. The American family was literally shredded during the 70s and 80s–and the apostles were concerned with the ills caused by rampant fatherlessness.
That said, while there’s no question that West has changed in significant ways, it is keeping the family intact that will do the most good vis-a-vis grounding and establishing the rising generation both temporally and spiritually regardless of those changes.
I haven’t read the book–so maybe I’m overreacting–but I don’t know why some folks utilize the argument that traditional family is really no more than the latest cultural construct–because of our polygamous past–as if that some how delegitimizes the core doctrines that are found right at the beginning of the scriptures.
Jack, but isn’t the traditional family a recent social construct? By traditional family, don’t we mean the common pattern of middle class America in the 1950s, where the man worked and provided all the money and the woman stayed home, the family was a unit of consumption instead of a unit of production, and teenagers enjoyed a fun adolescence?
I haven’t read the book, but I do believe that times change, people change, and societies and economies change. And however much we might want to pretend otherwise, the church of which we’re a part has also changed.
I am okay with the proclamation, and I understand why it was written, but since so many people continually point to it, may I ask for specific, tangible, and concrete actions you would like to see in others to perform to be true to the proclamation? Should we mandate marriage by a certain age? Should we proscribe divorce? Should we expect a certain number of children before calling a man to a high church office? Joseph F. Smith, while the prophet and at general conference, railed against women wearing make-up — that is specific and actionable. Heber J. Grant, while the prophet and at general conference, railed against Social Security and against electing Democrats to national office — that is specific and actionable. Of course, no one pays attention to those prophetic calls anymore. But for the proclamation, what specific and actionable actions or results are you asking for?
I believe the church needs to serve people, and it needs to serve them where they are. I still see Latter-day Saints getting married, albeit at generally later ages and lower rates than the 1950s. I still see Latter-day Saints having children, albeit at generally later ages and lower rates than the 1950s. Yes, I do see Latter-day Saint women in the workplace, much more than in the 1950s, but I understand that our economy no longer allows women to stay home like it did in the 1950s — so I do not think negatively of Latter-day Saint women for working. Indeed, have you noticed that almost all (maybe even all) of the women called to the general Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary presidencies in recent years are all working women? Doesn’t that mean that none of them heeded Ezra Taft Benson’s prophetic calls for them to stay at home and raise children?
Maybe the book and the OP have a valid point, that theological frameworks must evolve and that there may be strength in having the “psychological flexibility” to go “off script” — I think it is a valid thought. But yes, I do believe that the church exists to serve people, rather than people existing to serve the church.
I would not so quickly dismiss the faith and spiritual lives of multiple generations of church members so quickly as uncomplicated enjoyment of prosperity. I promise you, your parents and grandparents also experienced trials, you can just ask them. You may even have seen some of them. It’s quite possible to raise a family primarily on one income even today, although you may not enjoy some of the sacrifices that entails, and I completely understand if you make different choices; just be aware that it’s a choice, not something that has been forced on you or taken from you.
The Proclamation on the Family is probably more relevant today than when it was first published. People fail to understand it because they are looking for a series of simple thou shalt/thou shalt not commandments, when it instead presents a positive target that anyone, whatever their situation, can work towards.
To be clear, my own view is that the Family Proclamation is important and has good principles. I think that Brown’s point wasn’t that we need to throw out the Family Proclamation or to throw out the target it presents, as Jonathan says, so much as that the lived reality is complicated. I’m glad to hear that in some people’s experience, “It’s quite possible to raise a family primarily on one income even today,” but for most people in my generation, the model of a stay-at-home mother focused on nurturing a multitude of children and a breadwinning father bringing in the sole income for the family is out of reach, at least if you want to have a place to live and food to eat at the same time. I’ve lived a privileged life, with enough intergenerational wealth to buy and pay off a home and a STEM-field job that pays well, so it’s something my family has been able to do, but even then, it’s difficult. Raising children is great, but it takes a huge toll on mental health if it’s the only thing you’re doing, and it’s difficult to pay for anything beyond basic necessities on one income, even if you have a good income.
I think because of that reality, what Brown is saying is that we need to make more room culturally for people who don’t fit that ideal, so that when they aren’t in that exact ideal situation, they don’t feel like it’s viewed as a moral failing.
Chad, thanks for this lovely review and deep understanding of the challenges faced by LDS Millennials.
This book does not attack The Proclamation on the Family. Instead, it talks about how much I regret that more families today cannot make the choice to live the ideal it articulates. I think you’ll be surprised to find that it is also a deeply multi-generational book that turns to my father and the prophets before us as models of how to live in our own times. Hope you enjoy it <3
Chad, I would put it like this: There’s a broad spectrum of income levels and family sizes for which having one parent as the primary nurturer is not a luxury, but an economic necessity – childcare is so expensive that it’s basically impossible to pay for if there are multiple children of the relevant age and income is limited. But, as you say, it also entails paying for little beyond basic necessities for years at a time, which is not much fun. I just think that this experience isn’t that unusual across generations.
I think people are generally pretty good about not viewing less-than-ideal situations as moral failings in others, but it’s often harder to extend the same grace to ourselves.
Natalie, thanks for engaging with Chad’s review! I wish more of the authors he reviewed would do that.
Thanks for the review, Chad. Sounds like an important book.
Perhaps it’s just me, but I also think that some of the *messaging* surrounding the Proclamation has no explicit support in the document itself – such as that women should not get further education or job skills. I would argue (and I think this is a common belief, but for the ultra-conservatives who are often the die-hards in the wards who try to drive culture a certain way) that gaining specialized education and/or training becomes more and more important for women as time passes as a safeguard for her own well-being and safety, let alone for the light and knowledge she can pass on.
I thought the postwar term was “Plan of Salvation,” with “Plan of Happiness” being something used much more recently?