In False Prophet, readers meet Jal Persad, a grieving actor-turned-memoirist, who writes a viral memoir about his mother’s time with Jim Jones. The only problem? His mother never met Jim Jones. What follows is a web of lies,that explores how much we’re willing to let go of ourselves to achieve greatness.
Afsheen Farhadi’s writing has appeared Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Conjunctions, The Southern Review, Catapult, Bright Lights Film Journal, and elsewhere. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Reno. His debut book, False Prophet,, is scheduled for publication by Melville House on July 7, 2026. It is available for pre-order now.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of False Prophet, which was designed by Beste Miray Doğan, along with a Q&A with Farhadi about its creation.
While writing the book, did you have any ideas for what you wanted the cover to look like?
While writing the book, I didn’t even know what the title would be. During the early stages of composition, I was still figuring out so much through the semi-improvisational nature of writing that it was hard for me to have any sense of what I would want the cover (and title) to foreground for the reader. Once I finished the novel, however, I did have a vague idea
that Jal, the novel’s protagonist and titular false prophet, would be featured in some indirect way: maybe his shadow or the back of his head—an image that is actually an absence of image. I also had the idea that Teddy, his dog and, in a lot of ways, the novel’s soul, would be there, perhaps looking up at him.
Can you explain what the design process was like once you started working with your publishing team?
I felt a little lost when I was first asked to offer input on the eventual cover. I found a handful of covers I like, but this took longer than expected, because it wasn’t a part of the process I gave a lot of thought to early on. At the last minute, I also included, because he was the inspiration for Teddy, pictures of my dog, Bloom, who passed away a couple of years ago. At first, I felt a little strange, including pictures of my dead dog in a professional document. But I thought it could be useful if Melville House decided to include some nod to Teddy.
When I received the first version of the cover, I was surprised to see how prominently the dog was featured. In that first round, I think all of us had questions about the tone of the cover, whether the dog, as well as other design decisions, were making the book feel satirical, which it isn’t. The color scheme (red font on a yellow background) was also reminiscent of Portnoy’s Complaint, a novel I admire, but one which is tonally far off from False Prophet.
The final version of the cover, however, solved this issue.
What was it like seeing your finalized cover for the first time?
While having the dog draw such attention at first surprised me, in seeing it on the finalized cover, I was completely sold. I’m no interior decorator, but I recently moved into a new house, and as I make decorating and design choices, I’ve come to realize that if a piece draws my eye, if I enjoy looking at it, this is probably a good sign that it has a place in my home. When I first saw the cover, and even still, it satisfied both requirements, and I think this means it’s right for the novel.
On a personal note, while the dog on the cover is not an exact image of Bloom, I did have a bit of an emotional response to seeing him there, being, in some way, tribute to a creature I still miss.
How does the cover work to convey what the book is all about?
I don’t want to speak on the nature of evil, but I do think it’s always worth remembering that the people who commit the worst acts in this world are still people. And I think people are motivated by a very small list of things. One of those is, undoubtedly, love—the love we wish to give, or, perhaps more often, the love we wish to receive. For whatever moral ambiguity Jal may approach throughout the novel, he is motivated, in some complex and, perhaps, warped sense, by love. And Teddy, more than any other character in the book, is a symbol of that love, the love Jal yearns to receive from more than just his dog.