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In the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew preparedness along with malfunctioning safety doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials led to the deaths of 159 people. At first, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this individual too perished in the fire and was not able to refute the accusations, the full truth about the event stayed hidden for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the fire was probably started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unnamed narrator is riding on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the street. As the vehicle moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the character enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She presents us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their troubled pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the source of Kurt's discontent may originate in a poor financial decision made on his account by a man known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the narrator explains her struggle to compose T's story. “Within this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had successfully been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the tale indirectly, as a type of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A tale gradually emerges of a woman who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks relates to him what occurred to her a ten years earlier, when she agreed to an offer from a figure who professed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we start to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our peril. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A additional storyline comes finally to light—the story of a girl whose early years was scarred by abuse and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with social expectations or suffer further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of results: surrender or stay a monster.” A third way out is ultimately revealed through a collection of poems to the night that are also a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Reality

Many UK audience members of Nordenhof's series novels will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, shares similarities in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing profit over people. In these first two books of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the blaze aboard the ship and the series of fraudulent business deals that culminated in mass murder are a ominous background element, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet casting a growing shadow over everything that transpires. Some readers may doubt how much it is feasible to read this volume 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.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Fused

Some individuals—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as text, as truly experimental writing whose moral and artistic purpose are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, magnetic devotion to the craft as a political act. I intend to continue to follow this literary journey, no matter where it leads.