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During the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient staff training along with malfunctioning safety doors aided the propagation of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials caused the deaths of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a passenger—a truck driver with a record of arson. Given that this suspect too perished in the fire and was unable to defend himself, the full truth regarding the disaster remained concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the blaze was likely set deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, the preceding volume, an unidentified narrator is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she notices an elderly man on the street. As the vehicle moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in pursuit of him, the narrator finds herself in a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She presents us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is suggested that the source of Kurt's discontent may stem from a poor financial decision made on his account by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Approach

The Devil Book opens with an extended prose poem in which the narrator explains her challenge to write T's story. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the blaze / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she approaches the tale obliquely, 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 erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A narrative gradually emerges of a female character who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and during those days relates to him what occurred to her a decade earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a figure who professed to be the devil to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the elements of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we start to believe that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination

Classic stories teach us that it is the devil who does bargains, not God, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the devil? A third storyline eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose early years was scarred by abuse and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to conform with societal norms or endure further harm. “[This entity] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are two results: submit or stay a beast.” A third way out is finally revealed through a collection of verses to the darkness that are also a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Readings: From Fiction to Reality

Many British readers of the author's series books will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, shares parallels in that the ensuing tragedy and fatalities can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of putting profit over people. In these initial books of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the fire aboard the ship and the chain of fraudulent transactions that ended in mass murder are a ominous background presence, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet projecting a growing influence over all that occurs. Certain individuals may question how much it is feasible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone piece, when its aim and significance are so deeply tied into a broader whole whose final form, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

Some individuals—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as properly innovative writing whose moral and artistic intent are so profoundly entwined 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 goes.