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During the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient staff training combined with jammed fire doors accelerated the spread of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas released from combusting laminates caused the deaths of 159 individuals. At first, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this individual also perished in the fire and was unable to defend himself, the complete facts about the disaster stayed concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the blaze was probably started intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unnamed narrator is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she observes an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the bus moves away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in pursuit of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She presents us to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the burdens of their conflicted histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is suggested that the source of Kurt's discontent may originate in a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Approach

This second installment opens with an extended prose poem in which the narrator explains her struggle to write T's story. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Burdened by the undertaking she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a type of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually emerges of a woman who spends quarantine in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks relates to him what occurred to her a decade earlier, when she accepted an offer from a man who professed to be the devil to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the elements of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we start to believe that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are devils all around.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the devil who does deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But what if the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional narrative comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose early years was scarred by abuse and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to comply with social expectations or endure more of the same. “[This entity] understands that in the game you've set for it, there are two results: submit or remain a monster.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a collection of verses to the darkness that are also a call to arms against the influences of capital.

Connections and Readings: From Literature to Reality

Numerous British audience members of Nordenhof's series books will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in cause, bears similarities in that the ensuing disaster and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the fire aboard the ferry and the series of deceptive business deals that ended in multiple deaths are a ominous underlying element, showing themselves only in fleeting flashes of detail or inference yet casting a deepening influence over everything that occurs. Certain readers may question how far it is possible to read The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its aim and significance are so intricately tied into a larger whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Ethics and Aesthetics 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 creative purpose are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: an intense, attractive commitment to writing as a political act. I will continue to pursue this literary journey, no matter where it goes.