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During the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew preparedness combined with jammed fire doors aided the spread of the fire, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas released from combusting materials caused the loss of 159 people. At first, the disaster was attributed to a passenger—a truck driver with a record of arson. Since this individual too perished in the incident and was unable to defend himself, the full facts regarding the event remained hidden for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive investigation disclosed the blaze was likely set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse

In the initial book of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unidentified protagonist is riding on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Driven to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the narrator finds herself in a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She presents readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the burdens of their troubled pasts. In the concluding section of that volume, it is suggested that the source of the character's discontent may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a man known as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

The Devil Book opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the writer explains her struggle to write T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has assigned herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a form of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about businessmen and / the dark force.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a woman who spends lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those weeks relates to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she accepted an proposal from a figure who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the two stories become more intertwined, we start to believe that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are devils all around.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, compelling commitment to literature as a form of activism

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the devil who does bargains, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But what if the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose childhood was marred by mistreatment and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with societal norms or endure further harm. “[This entity] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or stay a monster.” A alternative path is ultimately unveiled through a collection of verses to the night that are also a rallying cry against the influences of capital.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Reality

Numerous UK audience members of the author's series novels will think immediately of the London tower fire, which, though accidental in cause, shares similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing profit over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the fire on board the ship and the chain of fraudulent transactions that culminated in multiple deaths are a sinister underlying presence, showing themselves only in brief flashes of information or implication yet projecting a deepening shadow over everything that transpires. Certain individuals may doubt how far it is feasible to read The Devil Book as a stand-alone work, when its purpose and significance are so deeply tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as among them—who will fall in love with the author's project purely as text, as properly experimental writing whose moral and creative purpose are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we require / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive devotion to the craft as a political act. I will persist to pursue this series, no matter where it leads.