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In the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient crew training combined with malfunctioning safety doors aided the propagation of the flames, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from burning materials led to the loss of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was attributed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this individual also perished in the incident and was unable to defend the accusations, the full facts regarding the disaster remained hidden for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary revealed the blaze was likely started intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

Within the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the street. As the bus moves away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is taking a part of him with her. Compelled to repeat the journey in search 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 connection is strained by the burdens of their conflicted histories. In the concluding section of that volume, it is implied that the root of the character's discontent may stem from a poor financial decision made on his account by a man known as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Approach

The Devil Book opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the writer describes her struggle to compose T's story. “Within this second volume,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has assigned herself and disrupted by the global health crisis, she approaches 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 sensational story / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A tale gradually emerges of a woman who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and over the course of those weeks relates to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she agreed to an offer from a man who professed to be the devil to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we start to suspect that they are identical—or at the very least that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination

Literature teach us that it is the devil who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our risk. But suppose the narrator herself is the devil? A third storyline eventually emerges—the account of a girl whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to conform with societal norms or suffer further harm. “[This entity] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two outcomes: submit or remain a monster.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a collection of poems to the night that are also a call to arms against the influences of capital.

Connections and Interpretations: From Fiction to Reality

Numerous UK readers of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star books will reflect right away of the London tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, bears similarities in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over people. In these initial books of what is projected to be a seven-book series, the fire on board the ship and the chain of deceptive transactions that ended in multiple deaths are a sinister background element, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of detail or implication yet casting a deepening influence over all that occurs. Some readers may doubt how far 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 ultimate shape, at this stage, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly innovative writing whose moral and artistic intent are so deeply interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive commitment to writing as a statement. I intend to persist to follow this literary journey, no matter where it leads.