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In the late night of April 7 1990, a devastating blaze erupted aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew preparedness combined with jammed safety doors aided the propagation of the flames, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning laminates led to the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the disaster was blamed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of arson. Since this suspect too died in the fire and was not able to defend himself, the complete truth regarding the disaster remained hidden for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary revealed the fire was likely started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

Within the initial book of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, the preceding volume, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a bus through Copenhagen when she observes an elderly man on the street. As the vehicle moves away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to repeat the journey in search of him, the narrator enters a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She presents readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the burdens of their troubled pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the root of the character's discontent may stem from a poor financial decision made on his account by a individual known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an extended poetic passage in which the narrator explains her struggle to compose T's story. “In this second volume,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she tackles the tale indirectly, as a type of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a female character who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and over the course of those days tells to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she agreed to an offer from a figure who professed to be the devil to grant all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the elements of the dual narratives 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 demonic forces all around.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, compelling dedication to writing as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the devil who does bargains, not God, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative comes finally to light—the story of a young woman 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] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are a pair of results: submit or remain a monster.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a collection of verses to the darkness that are simultaneously a call to arms against the influences of wealth and power.

Connections and Interpretations: From Fiction to Reality

Numerous British audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star books will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, bears parallels in that the resulting disaster and loss of life 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 series, the blaze on board the ship and the series of fraudulent transactions that ended in multiple deaths are a ominous underlying element, showing themselves only in brief glimpses of detail or inference yet casting a deepening shadow over everything that occurs. Some readers may question how far it is possible to read The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately tied into a broader narrative whose final form, at present, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as written art, as properly experimental literature whose moral and creative purpose are so deeply interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we need / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, magnetic devotion to writing as a political act. I will continue to pursue this literary journey, wherever it goes.