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In the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate staff preparedness combined with jammed safety doors aided the spread of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials led to the loss of 159 people. At first, the tragedy was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Since this suspect too died in the incident and was unable to defend the accusations, the full facts regarding the event remained hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a detailed investigation revealed the fire was likely set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Series: An Overview

Within the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the bus drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in search of him, the character enters a landscape that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their troubled pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the root of the character's discontent may originate in a disastrous investment made on his account by a individual known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Narrative Style

The Devil Book opens with an extended prose poem in which the narrator describes her challenge to compose T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the story obliquely, as a form of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A tale gradually unfolds of a woman who spends lockdown in London with a virtual stranger and during those weeks relates to him what occurred to her a decade earlier, when she accepted an offer from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the threads of the two stories become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline eventually emerges—the account of a girl whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who spent time in a mental health facility, under pressure to comply with social expectations or suffer more of the same. “[The devil] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are two results: surrender or stay a monster.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a series of verses to the night that are also a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Real Events

Many UK audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star books will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, shares similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the devil's bargain of putting profit over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the blaze aboard the ferry and the series of deceptive business deals that culminated in mass murder are a ominous background element, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or implication yet projecting a growing shadow over all that occurs. Certain readers may doubt how much it is possible to read The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its aim and significance are so deeply tied into a larger whole whose final form, at this stage, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Fused

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as text, as truly innovative literature whose ethical and artistic purpose are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we require / that as well.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive commitment to writing as a political act. I will persist to follow this literary journey, wherever it leads.