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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew preparedness combined with jammed safety doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas released from burning laminates caused the loss of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a truck driver with a history of arson. Given that this suspect too perished in the incident and was unable to defend the accusations, the full truth regarding the disaster remained concealed for a long time. Only in 2020 that a detailed documentary revealed the blaze was probably started deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Series: An Overview

In the initial book of Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the street. As the vehicle moves away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Driven to repeat the journey in pursuit of him, the character enters a landscape that is both alien and deeply familiar. She presents us to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the pressures of their troubled pasts. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the source of the character's disaffection may stem from a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Narrative Style

The Devil Book begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the narrator explains her struggle to compose T's story. “In this volume, two,” she states, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a type 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 entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A narrative slowly unfolds of a woman who spends quarantine in London with a virtual stranger and during those days relates to him what occurred to her a ten years before, when she accepted an offer from a figure who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. 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 nature of T is legion, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the devil who does deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline comes finally to light—the story of a girl whose childhood was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to conform with social expectations or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've created for it, there are two results: surrender or remain a beast.” A third way out is finally revealed through a collection of verses to the darkness that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the influences of wealth and power.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Real Events

Numerous UK audience members of Nordenhof's series novels will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, shares parallels in that the ensuing disaster and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over people. In these initial books of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze aboard the ship and the chain of deceptive transactions that culminated in multiple deaths are a ominous background presence, showing themselves only in brief glimpses of information or inference yet projecting a growing shadow over everything that occurs. Some readers may doubt how far it is feasible to read The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its purpose and meaning are so deeply tied into a broader whole whose final form, at this stage, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as written art, as properly innovative literature whose moral and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive commitment to writing as a statement. I intend to persist to follow this series, wherever it leads.