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During the late night of April 7 1990, a devastating fire erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate staff preparedness combined with malfunctioning fire doors aided the propagation of the flames, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning laminates led to the loss of 159 people. At first, the disaster was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Since this individual too perished in the incident and was not able to defend himself, the full truth about the event remained concealed for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed investigation revealed the blaze was likely started deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

Within the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “eerie sense” 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 presents readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that book, it is suggested that the source of Kurt's disaffection may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book opens with an extended prose poem in which the writer explains her struggle to compose T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the story obliquely, as a form of parable. “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 businessmen and / the dark force.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a woman who spends quarantine in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks relates to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she agreed to an proposal from a figure who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the threads of the two stories become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at the very least that the identity of T is legion, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not God, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline comes finally to light—the story of a young woman whose early years was marred by abuse and who spent time in a mental health facility, under duress to conform with societal norms or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are a pair of results: surrender or stay a monster.” A third way out is finally revealed through a collection of verses to the darkness that are also a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Real Events

Numerous British readers of the author's Scandinavian Star books will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though accidental in cause, bears similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze on board the ship and the chain of deceptive transactions that ended in mass murder are a sinister background element, showing themselves only in brief flashes of information or implication yet projecting a growing influence over all that transpires. Certain readers may question how far it is possible to read The Devil Book as a stand-alone work, when its aim and significance are so deeply bound into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Fused

Some individuals—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as properly innovative literature whose ethical and creative intent are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that as well.” There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic commitment to writing as a political act. I will persist to pursue this series, no matter where it goes.