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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew preparedness combined with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning laminates led to the deaths of 159 people. At first, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of arson. Given that this individual too perished in the incident and was not able to refute himself, the full truth about the event remained concealed for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the blaze was likely started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

In the initial book of Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital 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. Compelled to repeat the route in search of him, the narrator enters a landscape that is both alien and deeply familiar. She presents us to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that volume, it is suggested that the source of Kurt's disaffection may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his account by a man 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 compose T's narrative. “Within this second volume,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the task she has set herself and disrupted by the global health crisis, she approaches the tale indirectly, as a type 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 tale gradually unfolds of a woman who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those days relates to him what occurred to her a ten years before, when she agreed to an offer from a figure who claimed to be the devil to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who makes bargains, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A additional narrative eventually emerges—the account of a girl whose childhood was marred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to conform with societal norms or suffer more of the same. “[The devil] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two results: submit or stay a beast.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a series of verses to the darkness that are also a rallying cry against the forces of capital.

Connections and Readings: From Literature to Reality

Many British audience members of the author's series books will think right away of the London tower fire, which, though accidental in origin, bears parallels in that the resulting tragedy and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over people. In these initial volumes of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the fire on board the ferry and the series of deceptive business deals that ended in multiple deaths are a ominous background presence, showing themselves only in brief flashes of detail or inference yet projecting a deepening shadow over everything that transpires. Some readers may question how much it is possible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone piece, when its aim and meaning are so intricately tied into a larger whole whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Fused

Some individuals—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's project purely as text, as truly experimental literature whose ethical and artistic intent are so deeply interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we require / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, magnetic commitment to writing as a statement. I will continue to follow this series, wherever it leads.