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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. Inadequate crew preparedness along with malfunctioning safety doors accelerated the spread of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates led to the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the tragedy was attributed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Given that this suspect too died in the fire and was not able to refute the accusations, the full facts regarding the event remained hidden for many years. Only in 2020 that a detailed investigation revealed the fire was likely started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: An Overview

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle moves away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in pursuit of him, the narrator enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She introduces us to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the root of the character's discontent may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his account by a man referred to as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer explains her struggle to write T's narrative. “Within this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the tale indirectly, as a form of parable. “I came to think / 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 gradually emerges of a female character who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those days tells to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she agreed to an offer from a figure who professed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the dark figure who makes bargains, not God, and that we enter into them at our peril. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose early years was scarred by abuse and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[This entity] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of results: submit or remain a beast.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a series of poems to the darkness that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Numerous UK audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though accidental in cause, shares similarities in that the resulting tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at in part to the dangerous trade-off of putting financial gain over people. In these first two volumes of what is planned to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze aboard the ship and the series of fraudulent business deals that ended in multiple deaths are a ominous background presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet casting a growing shadow over everything that occurs. Certain readers may doubt how far it is possible to read this volume as a independent piece, when its aim and meaning are so deeply tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at this stage, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I count myself as one of them—who will become enamored with the author's project purely as text, as truly innovative writing whose ethical and artistic intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we require / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive devotion to the craft as a political act. I intend to continue to follow this series, wherever it leads.