🔗 Share this article

During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew preparedness along with malfunctioning fire doors aided the propagation of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas released from burning materials caused the deaths of 159 people. At first, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this suspect also perished in the fire and was not able to defend himself, the full facts about the disaster stayed hidden for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed investigation disclosed the blaze was probably set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unnamed protagonist is riding on a public transport through the Danish capital when she notices an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the bus moves away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is taking a part 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 readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the pressures of their troubled pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the root of the character's disaffection may stem from a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a man referred to as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Approach

The Devil Book opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator describes her challenge to write T's narrative. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the blaze / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and disrupted by the global health crisis, 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 work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the dark force.”

A tale slowly emerges of a female character who experiences lockdown in London with a virtual stranger and during those weeks tells to him what happened to her a decade earlier, 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 question his motives. As the elements of the two stories become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces all around.

There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic dedication to writing as a form of activism

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Examination

Literature instruct us that it is the devil who does bargains, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But what if the narrator herself is the devil? A third narrative eventually emerges—the account of a girl whose childhood was marred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to conform with social expectations or endure further harm. “[The devil] understands that in the game you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or stay a monster.” A third way out is finally revealed through a collection of poems to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Real Events

Numerous British audience members of Nordenhof's series books will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though accidental in cause, shares parallels in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be linked at in part to the devil's bargain of putting profit over human lives. In these initial books of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze aboard the ferry and the series of deceptive business deals that ended in mass murder are a ominous background presence, revealing themselves only in brief glimpses of detail or implication yet projecting a growing shadow over all that transpires. Some readers may doubt how much it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately bound into a larger whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as written art, as properly experimental literature whose ethical and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that as well.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive devotion to writing as a statement. I will continue to pursue this series, no matter where it leads.