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During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew training combined with jammed fire doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas emitted from burning laminates led to the deaths of 159 individuals. At first, the disaster was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of arson. Since this suspect too died in the incident and was not able to refute the accusations, the complete facts regarding the event stayed hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive investigation revealed the blaze was probably set intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle drives away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is taking a part of him with her. Compelled to retrace the route in pursuit of him, the narrator enters a landscape that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the root of the character's discontent may stem from a poor investment made on his behalf by a man known as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Narrative Style

The Devil Book begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the narrator explains her challenge to write T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were meant / to follow him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the ferry / had successfully been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story indirectly, as a type of parable. “I came to think / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually emerges of a woman who experiences quarantine in London with a virtual stranger and over the course of those days tells to him what occurred to her a decade earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives 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 all around.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, magnetic commitment to literature as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination

Literature teach us that it is the devil who does deals, not God, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the narrator herself is the devil? A third storyline eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose early years was scarred by abuse and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with social expectations or suffer more of the same. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've set for it, there are a pair of results: surrender or remain a monster.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a collection of poems to the darkness that are also a call to arms against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Interpretations: From Fiction to Reality

Many UK readers of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in cause, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing profit over people. In these first two volumes of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the fire on board the ferry and the series of fraudulent business deals that culminated in mass murder are a ominous underlying element, showing themselves only in fleeting flashes of detail or inference yet projecting a deepening shadow over all that occurs. Certain individuals may question how much it is possible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone work, when its aim and meaning are so intricately bound into a larger whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as written art, as properly innovative literature whose ethical and creative purpose are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that as well.” There is another fire here: an intense, attractive commitment to writing as a statement. I intend to continue to pursue this series, wherever it goes.