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In the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient crew training along with malfunctioning fire doors aided the propagation of the flames, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials led to the loss of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a truck driver with a history of arson. Since this individual also died in the incident and was unable to refute the accusations, the full facts regarding the disaster remained hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the fire was probably started intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

In the first volume of Nordenhof's epic series, the preceding volume, an unnamed narrator is traveling on a public transport through Copenhagen when she observes an elderly man on the street. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Compelled to repeat the journey in pursuit of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She introduces us to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the concluding section of that volume, it is suggested that the source of Kurt's discontent may originate in a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a man known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Narrative Style

The Devil Book begins with an extended prose poem in which the writer describes her struggle to compose T's story. “Within this second volume,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story indirectly, as a form of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A tale gradually unfolds of a woman who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and during those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she agreed to an offer from a figure 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 two stories become more intertwined, we start to believe that they are identical—or at the very least that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Examination

Classic stories teach us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our peril. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose childhood was marred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to conform with social expectations or suffer more of the same. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two results: surrender or stay a monster.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a series of verses to the darkness that are also a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Readings: From Fiction to Real Events

Numerous British audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, shares similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the devil's bargain of prioritizing financial gain over human lives. In these initial books of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the blaze aboard the ship and the chain of fraudulent business deals that ended in mass murder are a ominous underlying presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of detail or implication yet casting a deepening influence over all that occurs. Certain readers may doubt how much it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone piece, when its purpose and significance are so deeply bound into a larger narrative whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as text, as properly innovative writing whose moral and artistic purpose are so deeply entwined as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: an intense, attractive devotion to the craft as a statement. I will persist to pursue this literary journey, wherever it leads.