Instruction Manual for Future Lover, Madeline Garfinkle‘s debut novel, is a sharp, funny exploration of modern dating, self-improvement, and the search for love. Determined to find a date for an upcoming wedding, a twenty-nine-year-old woman throws herself into dating apps, personal reinvention, and the chaos of romantic possibility, only to discover that the person she needs to find might be herself.
Garfinkle is a Brooklyn-based writer who received her MFA from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in Washington Square Review and elsewhere. Instruction Manual for Future Lover will be published by Simon & Schuster on May 18, 2027.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of Instruction Manual for Future Lover, designed by Math Monahan. Below, Garfinkle discusses her love of minimalist covers, the novel’s exploration of performance and identity, and how a woman dancing with a ghostlike partner captures the longing and self-discovery at the heart of the story.
While writing the book, did you have any ideas for what you wanted the cover to look like?
Ha, is it weird that a cover had never crossed my mind while writing?? This was the first novel I had ever written, and the biggest thing I was thinking about while writing was…finishing it!
Can you explain what the design process was like once you started working with your publishing team?
The team asked if I had any input before they went to art department, and my agent had the excellent idea of putting together a Pinterest board with inspiration. Once I started that, a certain vibe definitely emerged. I’ve always loved minimalism; book covers that exercise restraint and leave space for a title to breathe — this feeling of like: what IS this about? A lot of my inspo hinged on that. I also gave the team an idea of what I didn’t like in book covers, which I compiled in a document aptly titled “I REALLY HATE THESE.” Sometimes I think it’s equally, if not more, important, to know what you don’t like, as much as what you do.
What was it like seeing your finalized cover for the first time?
It was really special. I actually saw it for the first time in person, which I didn’t know was going to happen that day. It was so awesome to share that moment with my team. I literally said “I can’t stop staring at it.” And I really couldn’t! It was also super humbling, just the reality of it. Being a writer is often a very private, isolating thing. Publishing turns that isolation into collaboration, and takes what was once private and makes it a shared experience. Seeing the cover was one of those moments where I took a step back and realized just how many people have been part of bringing this book to the world. And I’m literally just one of them! All I did was write it!
How does the cover work to convey what the book is all about?
Much of the book wrestles with this notion of performance; the roles we slip in and out of in everyday life, the ones we’ve chosen versus been assigned, and the roles we either hope to be cast or half-heartedly attempt to fill. I think the retro, old-school vibe of the woman on the cover speaks to some of the performance happening, and how the narrator imagines herself to be, versus how she actually is.
Equally, the narrator is desperate for someone to save her, and she’s holding space for someone who may or may not materialize. The ghost-like outline of the woman’s dance partner, to me, feels like the “future lover” the narrator is always “preparing” for, but she’s so busy performing, waiting, and practicing, that she’s completely unaware that she’s already going through the motions – of dancing, of living – all on her own.