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During the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew preparedness along with malfunctioning safety doors accelerated the spread of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials caused the loss of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a history of arson. Since this suspect too perished in the incident and was not able to refute the accusations, the full truth about the disaster remained concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the fire was likely started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: An Overview

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, Money to Burn, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the street. As the bus drives away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a part of him with her. Driven to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the character finds herself in a landscape that is both alien and strangely known. She presents us to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that volume, it is suggested that the root of Kurt's disaffection may stem from a poor investment made on his account by a man referred to as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer explains her challenge to write T's narrative. “Within this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she approaches the story obliquely, as a form of allegory. “I came to think / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a female character who experiences lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days relates to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she agreed to an offer from a man who professed to be the evil entity 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 believe that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are devils all around.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, magnetic dedication to literature as a political act

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 risk. But what if the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative comes finally to light—the story of a young woman whose early years was scarred by abuse and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with social expectations or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or remain a beast.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a series of poems to the night that are also a rallying cry against the influences of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Reality

Many British audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though accidental in origin, shares parallels in that the ensuing disaster and fatalities can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of putting profit over human lives. In these initial volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume series, the fire aboard the ship and the chain of deceptive business deals that ended in mass murder are a ominous underlying element, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of detail or implication yet projecting a growing influence over all that occurs. Certain individuals may question how far it is feasible to read this volume as a stand-alone work, when its purpose and significance are so deeply tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at this stage, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Fused

There will be others—and I include myself as among them—who will fall in love with the author's project purely as text, as truly experimental writing whose moral and creative purpose are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive commitment to the craft as a political act. I will continue to pursue this literary journey, no matter where it leads.