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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a devastating blaze broke out on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff training combined with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas released from combusting materials caused the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Since this suspect too perished in the incident and was unable to refute the accusations, the full facts about the disaster stayed hidden for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the fire was likely started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: An Overview

In the initial book of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unnamed narrator is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she notices an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the bus moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Driven to repeat the journey in pursuit of him, the narrator enters a landscape that is both alien and deeply familiar. She presents readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the burdens of their conflicted histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is suggested that the source of the character's disaffection may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

The Devil Book begins with an extended prose poem in which the writer describes her struggle to write T's story. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / ignited.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the tale indirectly, as a type of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative slowly emerges of a female character who spends lockdown in London with a virtual stranger 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 professed to be the devil to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.

There is another fire here: an ardent, compelling commitment to literature as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Exploration

Literature instruct us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A additional narrative eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with societal norms or suffer more of the same. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two results: submit or remain a monster.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a collection of verses to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Reality

Numerous British audience members of the author's series books will think right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, bears similarities in that the ensuing disaster and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing profit over people. In these initial volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume series, the blaze aboard the ship and the series of fraudulent transactions that culminated in multiple deaths are a sinister background presence, revealing themselves only in brief glimpses of detail or inference yet projecting a growing shadow over everything that occurs. Certain readers may doubt how much it is feasible to read The Devil Book as a stand-alone piece, when its purpose and significance are so deeply tied into a broader whole whose final form, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as text, as properly experimental writing whose moral and creative purpose are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that as well.” There is another fire here: an intense, attractive commitment to the craft as a statement. I intend to continue to pursue this literary journey, no matter where it leads.