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In the late night of April 7 1990, a devastating blaze erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew training combined with malfunctioning fire doors aided the spread of the fire, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning laminates caused the deaths of 159 individuals. Initially, the tragedy was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of arson. Given that this individual too perished in the fire and was not able to defend himself, the complete truth about the event remained hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a detailed investigation revealed the blaze was probably started deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the street. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to repeat the journey in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their troubled histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the root of Kurt's disaffection may stem from a poor financial decision made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

The Devil Book opens with an extended poetic passage in which the writer describes her struggle to compose T's narrative. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story obliquely, as a form of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything 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 female character who spends lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks relates to him what happened to her a decade earlier, when she accepted an proposal from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, 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 one and the same—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Examination

Literature teach us that it is the devil who makes deals, not God, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A third narrative eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who spent time in a mental health facility, under pressure to conform with social expectations or endure more of the same. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've created for it, there are a pair of results: submit or remain a beast.” A third way out is ultimately revealed through a collection of verses to the darkness that are also a rallying cry against the forces of capital.

Connections and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Many UK audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect right away of the London tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, shares similarities in that the resulting tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at in part to the devil's bargain of putting profit over people. In these initial books of what is planned to be a seven-book sequence, the fire aboard the ship and the series of fraudulent transactions that culminated in mass murder are a sinister background element, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or implication yet projecting a growing influence over everything that transpires. Some individuals may doubt how far it is possible to read this volume as a independent work, when its purpose and significance are so intricately bound into a larger narrative whose ultimate shape, at present, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I include myself as among them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as written art, as properly innovative literature whose moral and artistic purpose are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that as well.” There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic devotion to the craft as a statement. I will persist to pursue this series, no matter where it leads.