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During the late night of April 7 1990, a devastating blaze broke out aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff preparedness along with jammed safety doors aided the propagation of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials caused the deaths of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Since this individual too died in the fire and was unable to defend the accusations, the complete facts about the disaster remained hidden for many years. Only in 2020 that a detailed investigation revealed the fire was probably started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Series: A Glimpse

Within the first volume of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, the preceding volume, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a bus through Copenhagen when she notices an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the bus drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the narrator 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 conflicted histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the source of the character's disaffection may stem from a poor financial decision made on his account by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the writer explains her challenge to compose T's narrative. “Within this second volume,” she states, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and disrupted by the global health crisis, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a type 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 dark force.”

A tale slowly unfolds of a female character who experiences lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and during those weeks relates to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she accepted an proposal from a man who claimed to be the devil to grant 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 suspect that they are identical—or at the very least that the identity of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces all around.

There is another fire here: an ardent, magnetic commitment to writing as a form of activism

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not God, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative comes finally to light—the account of a young woman whose early years was marred by abuse and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to conform with social expectations or endure more of the same. “[The devil] understands that in the game you've set for it, there are two results: submit or remain a beast.” A alternative path is ultimately unveiled through a collection of poems to the night that are also a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous British readers of the author's Scandinavian Star books will think immediately of the London tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, bears similarities in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over people. In these initial books of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the fire on board the ferry and the chain of fraudulent business deals that culminated in multiple deaths are a ominous underlying presence, showing themselves only in brief glimpses of detail or implication yet projecting a growing shadow over everything that transpires. Some individuals may doubt how much it is feasible to read this volume as a independent piece, when its purpose and significance are so deeply tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include 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 inseparable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive devotion to the craft as a political act. I will continue to follow this series, no matter where it leads.