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In the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating fire erupted aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff preparedness combined with jammed fire doors accelerated the spread of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas released from burning laminates caused the loss of 159 people. At first, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of arson. Since this individual also perished in the incident and was unable to refute himself, the complete truth regarding the disaster remained hidden for many years. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the fire was probably set intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

Within the first volume of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a public transport through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the street. As the vehicle drives away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to repeat the journey in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a landscape that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that book, it is suggested that the root of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a disastrous financial decision made on his account by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style

The Devil Book begins with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator explains her struggle to compose T's narrative. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the blaze / on the ferry / had successfully been / ignited.” Burdened by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the story indirectly, as a form of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a female character who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks tells to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a man who professed to be the evil entity to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. 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 legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

There is another fire here: a passionate, compelling commitment to literature as a form of activism

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Literature instruct us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not God, and that we engage in them at our risk. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to conform with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are two results: submit or remain a beast.” A third way out is ultimately unveiled through a collection of verses to the darkness that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Reality

Many UK audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will think right away of the London tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, bears parallels in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at in part to the dangerous trade-off of putting financial gain over people. In these initial books of what is projected to be a seven-book series, the fire aboard the ship and the series of fraudulent business deals that ended in multiple deaths are a ominous underlying element, revealing themselves only in brief glimpses of information or implication yet casting a growing influence over all that occurs. Some readers may doubt how much it is possible to read The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its purpose and significance are so deeply tied into a broader narrative whose final form, at this stage, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

Some individuals—and I include myself as among them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as truly experimental literature whose ethical and artistic intent are so deeply entwined as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic commitment to writing as a political act. I will continue to pursue this literary journey, no matter where it leads.