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In the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating blaze broke out aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew training combined with jammed fire doors aided the spread of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from burning materials caused the deaths of 159 individuals. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of arson. Since this individual also perished in the incident and was not able to defend himself, the complete truth regarding the event remained hidden for many years. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the fire was probably set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Series: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unidentified protagonist is riding on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the street. As the bus drives away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in pursuit of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She presents readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the concluding section of that book, it is suggested that the source of the character's discontent may originate in a poor investment made on his behalf by a man known as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Narrative Style

This second installment begins with an extended prose poem in which the narrator explains her challenge to compose T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has assigned herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she tackles the tale indirectly, as a type of parable. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a female character who spends lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks relates to him what happened to her a decade earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a man who professed to be the evil entity to grant all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the two stories become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, magnetic commitment to writing as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination

Literature instruct us that it is the devil who does deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A additional narrative eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose childhood was scarred by abuse and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to comply with societal norms or endure further harm. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are a pair of outcomes: submit or stay a monster.” A alternative path is ultimately revealed through a collection of poems to the night that are also a call to arms against the influences of wealth and power.

Connections and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Many UK audience members of the author's series novels will think right away of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in cause, bears parallels in that the ensuing disaster and loss of life can be attributed at in part to the devil's bargain of prioritizing financial gain over human lives. In these first two books of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze on board the ferry and the chain of fraudulent transactions that culminated in mass murder are a ominous background element, showing themselves only in brief glimpses of information or inference yet casting a growing influence over everything that transpires. Some readers may doubt how far it is possible to interpret The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its purpose and meaning are so deeply tied into a broader narrative whose final form, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as among them—who will become enamored with the author's project purely as text, as properly experimental writing whose ethical and creative intent are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that as well.” There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic commitment to the craft as a political act. I intend to persist to follow this literary journey, wherever it goes.