Afsheen Farhadi is the author of the new novel False Prophet. He is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Q: What inspired you to write False Prophet, and how did you create your characters Jal and Rita?
A: Growing up in Phoenix, Arizona, my family would often encounter the question of where they’re from. When my mom and uncles told people they were from Guyana, others would often mistake it for Ghana.
To mark the difference, my family would differentiate their home country by noting it was the site of the Jonestown cult. So from an early age, Jonestown figured into my identity and the way I see the world, and in part this is where the novel began.
I also think of the novel as something of a character study. Jal is seemingly well meaning, vulnerable, and sensitive. Ultimately I wanted to explore how someone like this can fall into the trap of megalomania, who, so to speak, might be tempted to drink his own Kool-Aid (Jonestown, for those who don’t know, if where that phrase comes from, because Jim Jones forced his followers to commit suicide by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid).
The version of his mother, Rita, that Jal creates is the one he thinks will become balm to his lifelong dissatisfaction with the coldness of his childhood and, in turn, create a compelling origin story.
Q: Did you need to do much research to write the novel, and if so, did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I know many writers who find research to be generative, but I’m not one of them. For this novel, I did some minor research on Jonestown. Because so much of the story that Jal tells is made up, I wanted to preserve a more free-wheeling, mythologized quality to it, rather than bogging it down with details and facts.
In my limited research on Jonestown, what was most surprising is how not surprising so much of it was. It’s a story we see over and over again, and which continues to play out in various ways today.
Jonestown, however, was the biggest and most tragic of its kind, and in that way it seems to speak to all cults and the way they ultimately fail their members, which is an understatement, of course.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The original title for the novel was The Fear of Being Human, which is the title of the story-within-the story that Jal and his ghostwriter, Kate, tell. I liked the way this emphasized the vulnerability and anxiety and pain that I isolated as often being the starting point for megalomaniacal behavior.
After reading it, however, my agent, Emma Dries, suggested False Prophet, which was a phrase that appeared several times in the original manuscript. It’s surprising now, but I’m not sure I liked it immediately. It didn’t take too long, however, for me to realize it was perfect.
Q: What do you think the book says about truth and lies?
A: We all want to believe in a world that makes narrative sense to us. And I think each of us forms our own version of the world in our heads, built of some combination of truth and lies—those we actually believe and those we desperately want to believe.
People who, for whatever reason, are most determined to see the world a certain way will modulate that dial to the point that truth and lies carry equal weight, which can be dangerous. But of course, it’s tempting, because we all understand that life is rife with difficult and painful truths.
Personally, I believe it’s healthier to accept and come to terms with those truths than obscure them with pleasure-inducing lies. This is something Jal struggles with, and which the novel explores.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m writing an essay collection on horror movies, which is my favorite film genre and which has meant a lot to me throughout my life.
I’m also working on my second novel, which is a literary sci-fi blend that explores the way our choices are some combination of collective and individual thinking, as well as the way our actions ripple across time.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: From the editorial vision to the final cover, I’m very happy with the way False Prophet turned out.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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