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During the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff training combined with jammed fire doors aided the propagation of the flames, while toxic cyanide gas emitted from burning materials caused the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a passenger—a truck driver with a record of arson. Since this individual too died in the incident and was unable to refute himself, the complete facts about the disaster remained concealed for a long time. Only in 2020 that a detailed investigation revealed the blaze was likely set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she notices an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the bus drives away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is taking 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 presents readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the concluding section of that volume, it is implied that the root of Kurt's disaffection may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a man known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style

The Devil Book opens with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer describes her challenge to compose T's story. “Within this second volume,” she states, “we were supposed / to follow him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had successfully been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the story obliquely, as a type 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 erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A tale gradually unfolds of a woman who experiences quarantine in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she agreed to an proposal from a figure who claimed to be the devil to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the threads of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

There is another fire here: an ardent, compelling dedication to writing as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Examination

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who does bargains, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our risk. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to comply with social expectations or suffer further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: submit or remain a monster.” A third way out is finally revealed through a collection of verses to the darkness that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous British readers of the author's series novels will think right away of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, bears similarities in that the ensuing disaster and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume series, the blaze aboard the ship and the chain of fraudulent transactions that culminated in mass murder are a ominous underlying element, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet projecting a growing shadow over all that transpires. Some readers may question how much it is possible to read this volume as a independent piece, when its purpose and meaning are so deeply tied into a broader narrative whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I count myself as one of them—who will become enamored with the author's project purely as written art, as properly experimental literature whose moral and creative purpose are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive commitment to writing as a statement. I will persist to follow this series, no matter where it goes.