Here’s something completely different. White’s epic police thriller sports a complex and engrossing plot, revolving around the many secrets held by former undercover cop Rex King, and particularly his involvement in the Miners’ Strike, all complicated by the appearance of a daughter he never knew he had. White combines all this, though, with a playful love of digression. Each chapter includes all the solutions to a quick crossword, along with a cornucopia of fascinating trivia. — The Best New Fiction, Mail on Sunday
This is not your average thriller, this is your exceptional experimental crime novel. For Tony White to write a sequel to The Fountain in the Forest, to merge the avant-garde with the whodunnit . . . is to rub out much of what has gone before in crime fiction. 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 . . . Like all great crime novels, the truth is not a revelation, it is a gradual calcification of options and the sovereignty of facticity. Phantom at the Feast is a site of resistance combatting the dystopian horizon of the AI literary industry . . . Against this algorithmic flattening, the novel – and this novel in particular – stands as a site of stubborn, human friction. — 3am Magazine
Prompted by Malcolm Paul’s interview for International Times, in which Malcolm asked (amongst many other things) about my early years and education, I’m sharing this short article commissioned and first published in the form of an audio essay in 2025 by the Royal Literary Fund.
Fernando Mañoso, Royal Literary Fund
A letter to my teachers would of course say, ‘Thank you.’
It’s amazing how small things – a word of encouragement, a reading recommendation, an invitation to be student rep on a committee – how such tiny seeds can grow and blossom into opportunities, life-directions, even a career.
Generally the importance of such moments only becomes visible in retrospect. But I’m particularly grateful to one teacher whose intervention produced immediate and long-lasting results.
Anne Weeks – who sadly died quite recently (and here I’d like to offer my sincere condolences to her family and friends) was my A-level art teacher at Farnham Sixth Form College. It is entirely due to her that I was able to go to art school, and it was there I discovered I was really a writer.
I enjoyed drawing and was quite good at it. And I’d been lucky enough to grow up in a small town with a big art college, what’s now the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham.
Having an art school in town meant that ‘the arts’ weren’t somehow high-falutin’ but simply something people did: working class people like me. I knew this because for a few years we’d had lodgers in our single-parent household: art students doing Foundation Courses, or studying Animation. It was fascinating to see their work, and they’d encourage me in turn; show me tricks of the trade. I soon realised that I wanted to go to art school too, so when the time came, I included Art in my A-level options.
Anne Weeks – Mrs Weeks as we called her at the time – was a great teacher; generous and supportive. With her encouragement I thrived. I was in my element. For the first time I felt I’d met ‘my people’ – other students who were curious about ideas, and were into reading, drawing, painting. With the money from my Saturday job stacking supermarket shelves, I’d travel to London and go to the Tate, or to the former Courtauld Galleries in Woburn Square, or the Royal Academy. Finally, those of us who wanted to go to art school put in applications for the Foundation Diploma.
I was thrilled to be offered an interview.
A few days later we were back together for ‘double-art’, my favourite class of the week. Everyone had received their letters from the college, confirming places on the Foundation Course.
Everyone, that is, but me.
Shocked, Mrs Weeks asked to see my letter. It said, ‘We are sorry that your application has been unsuccessful.’
The colour drained from her face – she was furious.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘We’ll see about that.’
And she turned and stormed out of the class, leaving the teaching assistant in charge. A few seconds later, I saw her little orange Fiat 500 pulling out of the college carpark.
I didn’t see Anne Weeks again that day, and I don’t know what she’d said, but the next morning I received a second letter from the art college, which began with the word ‘Congratulations’.
Thank you, Anne, wherever you are, for opening that door.
I never forgot it.
L-R Philip Bebb, Tony White in the hall of the former Foundation Department, West Surrey College of Art and Design, Farnham, Surrey, c. autumn 1982. Photographer not known. Print in author’s collection.
It turns out that book interviews are like buses: you wait ages and then three come along at once! It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to talk about my new novel Phantom at the Feast (out now on No Exit Press) and more with L-R Ben Lindner at Beyond the Zero podcast, James Riley for 3am Magazine, & Malcolm Paul for International Times. Links below — thanks, all!
Malcolm Paul interviewed me for the 1 August 2026 issue of the (legendary) International Times shortly before publication of my latest novel Phantom at the Feast. Taking the britpulp! anthology as a starting point, his interview does a deep dive (it’s a long read) into my early influences and my first novels – indeed going right back to my childhood and the importance of Farnham Library as my access point to literature. I also name-check lots of interesting small presses including Ma Bibliotheque, Joan, Tenement, Tangerine, Peninsula, Prototype, and Four Corners Books.
Sample quote:
In a complex and continually unfolding universe of reading and politics and commerce and desire, what I’m trying to do is to surprise and delight the reader…
It was great to talk to Ben Lindner of the brilliant Beyond the Zero podcast about Phantom at the Feast.
ICYMI Ben Lindner’s Beyond the Zero podcast is a weekly long-form discussion about books with authors, translators and critics from around the world. Last month was the fifth anniversary of Beyond the Zero – congratulations!
You can listen in the player below or wherever you get your podcasts!
Just for fun, here’s a Phantom at the Feast-related crossword that I set for Bedford Square Publishers’ newsletter subscribers! I thought that regular readers might also like to have a go.
Answers will be included in Bedford Square Publishers’ August newsletter – you can sign up for that here (scroll down). But I’ll also update this page with the solutions once that has gone out.
I’m very excited that contributors include the pioneering US author Sara Paretsky – creator of the V.I. Warshawski novels – as well as William Boyle, Donna Moore, Sophie Hannah, Hannah Morrissey, Paul Halter, Merle Nygate, Bonnie Burke-Patel, Gay Marris, Paul Waters, Leigh Russell, Samatha Lee Howe, Alex Coombs, Hannah King, Nick Triplow, Kay Blythe, James Grady and more!
L-R Mahmud El Sayed, M.H. Ayinde, Tony White: pre-show selfie in the Resonance FM green room, before 13 July episode of Literature Live, the monthly books programme of readings and chat, which places the emphasis firmly on authors reading from their prose fiction. Show repeats Tuesday 14 July 10am. Next episode 8pm Monday 14 September 2026.
Piece of Paper Press & tonywhite.london 
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