The Meta-ropolitan Police – Clues, Codes, and the Algorithmic Infosphere
The past haunts the book, the London of Chris Petit’s Robinson or the multi-layered, mythic ruins of Michael Moorcock’s Mother London, or the time-shifting echoes of Iain Sinclair’s White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings. Phantom at the Feast – like London – is built on top of its own ghosts – The Fountain in the Forest. Every alleyway, every sentence, is an archive of financial fraud, human trafficking, pornography, and the mappings of storyline in the previous novel. Every brick in the city, every word on the page, retains the vibration of the past, one can still hear The Clash’s 1985 busking tour – a ragged, acoustic ghost trailing through the concrete poured over the corpse of punk.
Steve Finbow reviews Phantom at the Feast by Tony White.