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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate staff preparedness combined with jammed fire doors aided the propagation of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from burning materials led to the loss of 159 people. At first, the tragedy was attributed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of arson. Given that this suspect too perished in the incident and was not able to refute himself, the complete facts regarding the disaster stayed hidden for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the fire was probably set deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse

Within the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, the preceding volume, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an elderly man on the street. As the vehicle moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Compelled to retrace the route in search of him, the character enters a landscape that is both alien and strangely known. She introduces us to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is suggested that the root of Kurt's discontent may stem from a poor investment made on his account by a man known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an extended poetic passage in which the writer describes her struggle to compose T's story. “Within this volume, two,” she states, “we were supposed / to follow him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the blaze / on the ferry / had successfully been / ignited.” Burdened by the task she has set herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she tackles the story obliquely, as a form of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a woman who spends lockdown in London with a virtual stranger and during those days relates to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she accepted an offer from a man who claimed to be the devil to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the threads of the two stories become more intertwined, we begin to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

There is another fire here: an ardent, magnetic dedication to writing as a form of activism

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Examination

Literature instruct us that it is the dark figure who makes bargains, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A third storyline eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose childhood was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to comply with societal norms or suffer further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two outcomes: surrender or remain a monster.” A third way out is ultimately unveiled through a series of verses to the night that are also a rallying cry against the influences of wealth and power.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Reality

Numerous UK audience members of Nordenhof's series novels will reflect right away of the London tower fire, which, though accidental in cause, shares similarities in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the dangerous trade-off of putting financial gain over human lives. In these initial books of what is projected to be a seven-book series, the fire aboard the ship and the series of fraudulent business deals that ended in mass murder are a ominous background presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of detail or inference yet casting a deepening shadow over all that occurs. Certain individuals may doubt how far it is possible to interpret The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its aim and significance are so intricately tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly experimental writing whose ethical and creative purpose are so deeply entwined as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we require / that as well.” There is another fire here: an intense, magnetic commitment to writing as a statement. I intend to persist to pursue this literary journey, wherever it goes.