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During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating blaze broke out on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew training along with jammed safety doors aided the propagation of the flames, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from burning materials led to the loss of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of arson. Since this suspect also perished in the incident and was not able to refute himself, the complete facts regarding the disaster remained hidden for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive investigation revealed the fire was probably started deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a bus through Copenhagen when she notices an older man on the street. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to retrace the route in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a landscape that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the source of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Approach

The Devil Book opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the writer explains her struggle to write T's story. “In this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to follow him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the task she has assigned herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the story obliquely, as a form of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about businessmen and / the dark force.”

A narrative slowly emerges of a female character who experiences lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days relates to him what occurred to her a ten years earlier, when she accepted an offer from a man who professed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the threads of the two stories become more intertwined, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, compelling dedication to writing as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination

Literature instruct us that it is the devil who does bargains, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our risk. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional narrative eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose childhood was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to conform with societal norms or suffer more of the same. “[This entity] knows that in the game you've set for it, there are two results: surrender or remain a monster.” A alternative path is ultimately revealed through a collection of poems to the night that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the influences of wealth and power.

Parallels and Readings: From Fiction to Reality

Numerous British readers of Nordenhof's series novels will think right away of the London tower tragedy, which, though accidental in cause, shares similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over human lives. In these first two books of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze aboard the ferry and the series of fraudulent transactions that culminated in mass murder are a sinister background presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of detail or implication yet casting a deepening shadow over all that transpires. Certain individuals may question how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone work, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately bound into a larger whole whose final form, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Fused

Some individuals—and I count myself as among them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's project purely as text, as truly innovative literature whose ethical and artistic purpose are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive devotion to the craft as a political act. I will continue to follow this literary journey, no matter where it leads.