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In the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew training along with jammed fire doors aided the propagation of the fire, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from burning materials led to the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this individual too died in the incident and was not able to refute himself, the complete truth about the disaster stayed hidden for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary revealed the fire was likely started deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Series: An Overview

In the initial book of Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the street. As the vehicle moves away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to retrace the journey in pursuit of him, the narrator enters a landscape that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the burdens of their troubled pasts. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the root of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Approach

This second installment begins with an extended poetic passage in which the narrator describes her struggle to write T's story. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the tale obliquely, as a form of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A narrative slowly emerges of a woman who experiences quarantine in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days tells to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she agreed to an proposal from a man who claimed to be the devil to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we start to believe that they are identical—or at the very least that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Exploration

Classic stories instruct us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our peril. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional storyline comes finally to light—the story of a girl whose childhood 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 game you've set for it, there are two outcomes: submit or remain a beast.” A third way out is ultimately unveiled through a series of poems to the darkness that are also a call to arms against the influences of wealth and power.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Reality

Many British readers of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, shares similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of putting financial gain over people. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the blaze on board the ship and the series of fraudulent transactions that culminated in multiple deaths are a sinister underlying element, showing themselves only in brief flashes of information or implication yet projecting a deepening shadow over all that transpires. Certain readers may question how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone work, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately bound into a broader narrative whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will become enamored with the author's endeavor purely as written art, as truly innovative writing whose ethical and artistic intent are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, attractive devotion to the craft as a political act. I will persist to follow this series, wherever it leads.