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During the late night of April 7 1990, a devastating fire broke out aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient crew preparedness combined with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates caused the loss of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this suspect too died in the incident and was unable to refute the accusations, the complete truth about the disaster stayed concealed for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the blaze was probably started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Literary Series: A Glimpse

Within the first volume of Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is riding on a public transport through Copenhagen when she notices an elderly man on the street. As the bus moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in search of him, the character enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their troubled histories. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the root of Kurt's discontent may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his account by a man referred to as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator describes her challenge to write T's narrative. “Within this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the blaze / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Burdened by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she tackles the story indirectly, as a type of parable. “I came to think / 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 emerges of a female character who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those weeks tells to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she agreed to an offer from a man who claimed to be the devil 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 suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the nature of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, compelling commitment to literature as a form of activism

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not God, and that we engage in them at our peril. But what if the narrator herself is the devil? A additional storyline eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose early years was marred by abuse and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with societal norms or suffer further harm. “[This entity] understands that in the scenario you've created for it, there are two outcomes: submit or stay a beast.” A third way out is ultimately revealed through a collection of verses to the night that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the influences of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Numerous British audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star books will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, bears parallels in that the resulting disaster and loss of life can be linked at in part to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing profit over people. 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 business deals that culminated in mass murder are a sinister underlying presence, revealing themselves only in brief flashes of information or inference yet projecting a growing influence over all that transpires. Certain individuals may doubt how far it is possible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone work, when its aim and meaning are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as written art, as properly experimental literature whose moral and creative intent are so deeply interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that as well.” There is another fire here: an intense, attractive devotion to writing as a political act. I intend to persist to pursue this series, wherever it goes.