What’s in a white lie?
Bayleigh Williams
False Prophet by Afsheen Farhadi Melville House, 2026.
Afsheen Farhadi’s debut novel, False ProPhet, is a true crime novel, but one with a twist—call it true crime in a funhouse mirror. Jal is a Guyanese-American actor who decides that he wants to write a memoir about his late mother’s experience living in Guyana while Jim Jones led his infamous cult, The Peoples Temple, in Jonestown, Guyana. If you’ve never heard the story, you might have at least heard the phrase “don’t drink the KoolAid,” which stems from the events that took place in Jonestown, when 900 of Jones’ followers committed “revolutionary suicide” by drinking cyanide-laced Fla-Vor-Aid. Jim Jones was an American preacher and leader of the Evangelist Church, The Peoples Temple, from whose pulpit he convinced hundreds of American followers to reside in an isolated commune in the jungles of Guyana. Jones’ manipulative abuse of power and brainwashing broke his followers down to the point where, when an American congressman tried to intervene, he convinced his followers to conduct the aforementioned “revolutionary suicide.”
The novel unfolds in alternating chapters, starting out from Jal’s perspective, then switching to his memoir, which is written in the third person, from his mother’s point of view. The way Jal writes his mother’s story aligns with reality—to a point. The problem is that Jal’s memoir details his mother interacting with the cult when she never truly did. What started out as a harmless
memoir about his Guyanese mother traveling to America while pregnant with him, quickly snowballs into how his mother got entangled with The Peoples Temple. We watch as Jal sinks deeper into the lie. There are many moments when Jal could have stopped the project or corrected the truth, but between pushy agents and his deep insecurities, he continues to write the memoir. What he ends up creating is a sympathetic, if not quite true, portrait. Rita’s family doesn’t seem to care about her, nor approve of her being pregnant. These vulnerabilities cause her to become desperate and seek emotional and financial security from the Peoples Temple. But what soon becomes clear is that Rita is just another version of Jal—and the Rita Jal wants her to be. In real life, Jal’s mother was not very encouraging or involved with him—just as is the case with Rita’s parents in the “memoir.” Not to mention that Jal’s novel-version of Rita is protective of her baby (in the womb) to the point where she imagines them having a special bond when he grows up.
These white lies that Jal shares through the memoir are his way of dealing with the grief of his mother’s death and her emotional absence while she was alive. As the book progresses, Jal’s memoir ends up inspiring so many people that he himself becomes a “false prophet.” The major conflict of the story arises when Jal’s estranged cousin, Kevin, confronts him about his blatant lies—about how the book affects the entire family and misrepresents them. Jal responds with what may be the most pivotal lines of the entire story: “You learn to look the other way. You learn to overblow things when it suits you. Hollywood isn’t for Boy Scouts. You have to know when to bend the truth. It’s the only way the dream machine works.” His statement sheds light on the strength of one’s moral conviction, and begs the question: Is anyone susceptible to corruption? Is there any truth baked in white lies? Jal’s agents knew that his story was heavily fabricated, yet still insisted he continue his work, claiming
BAYLEIGH WILLIAMS 3
that the truth was still at the heart of it. Jal is in a vulnerable state in his life and his agents prey on that. In a world where the truth is so manipulated, it becomes apparent how anyone could transform into a “false prophet—” and how anyone is capable of “drinking the Kool-Aid.”
This story is especially relevant nowadays, to the point where the term “false prophet” might be considered oversaturated. Infamous cult leaders like Charles Manson, Marshall Applewhite, and Jim Jones have had countless documentaries and stories recounting their actions. Netflix is having their heyday with true-crime documentaries lately, as well. On April 8th, 2026, they released a docuseries, titled “Trust Me: The False Prophet,” which is centered around the cult leader, Samuel Bateman. True-crime and cult leaders have become so popular that YouTubers will put on makeup while they relay the juicy details of serial killers and self-proclaimed prophets. And I will admit that I, too, find truecrime a guilty pleasure. That’s why when I saw Farhadi’s novel, I knew that it would be easy to read the book in one sitting. Of course, I did have a concern that it may not be as original in this current climate, especially when a recently released docuseries has the same name. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by False Prophet’s meta, multi-layered universe. While False Prophet is described as a thriller, I would say that it’s more of a paranoid fable concerning humanity itself.