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During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating blaze erupted on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff preparedness combined with jammed safety doors aided the spread of the fire, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning materials led to the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this suspect too perished in the fire and was not able to defend himself, the complete truth regarding the event remained hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a detailed investigation revealed the blaze was likely set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

In the first volume of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she notices an older man on the sidewalk. As the bus moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in search of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She presents us to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the source of Kurt's discontent may originate in a poor investment made on his account by a man referred to as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Approach

The Devil Book begins with an extended poetic passage in which the writer describes her struggle to write T's story. “Within this second volume,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the blaze / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she tackles the story indirectly, as a form of allegory. “I came to think / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A tale slowly unfolds of a woman who experiences lockdown in London with a virtual stranger and during those weeks relates to him what happened to her a decade before, when she agreed to an offer from a man who professed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the threads of the two stories become more intertwined, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the dark figure who does deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But what if the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A additional storyline comes finally to light—the story of a girl whose childhood was scarred by abuse and who spent time in a mental health facility, under duress to conform with social expectations or endure more of the same. “[The devil] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are two results: submit or stay a monster.” A third way out is ultimately revealed through a series of poems to the night that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of capital.

Connections and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Many UK audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star books will reflect right away of the London tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, shares parallels in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be linked at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting profit over human lives. In these initial books of what is projected to be a seven-book series, the blaze aboard the ferry and the series of fraudulent business deals that culminated in multiple deaths are a ominous underlying element, revealing themselves only in brief glimpses of detail or inference yet projecting a deepening influence over everything that transpires. Certain readers may doubt how much it is possible to read The Devil Book as a stand-alone piece, when its aim and meaning are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as properly innovative writing whose ethical and artistic intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic commitment to the craft as a political act. I will continue to follow this literary journey, wherever it goes.