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During the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew preparedness along with malfunctioning safety doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates led to the deaths of 159 individuals. At first, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a truck driver with a history of arson. Since this individual also died in the fire and was unable to refute himself, the complete truth regarding the disaster stayed concealed for many years. Only in 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the fire was probably started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: An Overview

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is riding on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to retrace the route in pursuit of him, the narrator finds herself in a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their troubled pasts. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the root of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a poor financial decision made on his behalf by a man known as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book opens with an extended prose poem in which the narrator describes her struggle to compose T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she writes, “we were meant / to follow him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has assigned herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the story obliquely, as a type of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a woman who experiences quarantine in London with a near-unknown person and during those weeks relates to him what occurred to her a ten years before, when she accepted an proposal from a man who professed to be the devil to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are devils all around.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, compelling dedication to writing as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Classic stories instruct us that it is the dark figure who does deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose childhood was scarred by mistreatment and who spent time in a mental health facility, under duress to conform with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[This entity] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are two results: submit or stay a monster.” A third way out is finally revealed through a collection of poems to the night that are also a rallying cry against the forces of capital.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Real Events

Many British readers of the author's series novels will think immediately of the London tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at in part to the dangerous trade-off of putting financial gain over human lives. In these initial books of what is planned to be a multi-volume sequence, the fire aboard the ferry and the chain of deceptive business deals that ended in mass murder are a ominous underlying presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or implication yet projecting a growing shadow over all that occurs. Some individuals may doubt how far it is possible to read this volume as a stand-alone piece, when its aim and significance are so deeply tied into a larger whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as written art, as properly experimental writing whose moral and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive devotion to the craft as a statement. I will continue to pursue this literary journey, no matter where it goes.