The Future Tense of Joy

A deeply moving account of motherhood, love, and the complexities of memory and healing by a survivor of sexual assault grappling with betrayals in her past as she moves through her experience of trauma to redefine her future. For readers of Jeanette Walls, Alexandra Fuller, and anyone who has struggled to hope, to heal, to forgive, and be free.

When Jessica Teich happens upon the obituary of a fellow Rhodes scholar named Lacey, she vows to unravel the truth behind the young woman’s suicide. As Lacey’s story unspools, Teich begins to detect ghostly links to her own life, forcing her to reflect on her own anguished past. A funny, probing and deeply affecting book, The Future Tense of Joy is the luminous account of one woman’s efforts to free herself—and her family—from the demons of her memory. The book explores the daily upheavals of marriage and motherhood, even as it exposes the treachery of silence and honors the consoling power of love.

“'No one was less likely to take her own life.' That’s what her Oxford thesis advisor said. From the moment I stumbled across her obituary, late at night when I couldn’t sleep, I was captivated. This brilliant woman seemed incandescent. She was funny and gifted and generous and beloved. Twenty-six years old, and a newlywed. Why would she decide to die?"

“Jessica Teich’s understanding of trauma is the infallible authority upon which her tale rests. But the delicacy and nuance with which she renders this story is that of a poet. This beautiful, compassionately imagined book will bring a pang of recognition to anyone who has traveled to young adulthood from a wounded adolescence via the quest for ‘perfection.’”  —MERYL STREEP