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In the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff preparedness combined with jammed safety doors aided the propagation of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials caused the deaths of 159 people. At first, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a record of arson. Since this suspect also died in the incident and was not able to defend the accusations, the complete truth regarding the event remained hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a detailed investigation revealed the blaze was probably started deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: An Overview

Within the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is riding on a bus through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle moves away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Driven to retrace the route in pursuit of him, the character enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the burdens of their troubled pasts. In the concluding section of that volume, it is suggested that the root of Kurt's discontent may stem from a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an extended poetic passage in which the writer describes her challenge to write T's story. “Within this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the tale indirectly, as a type of allegory. “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 entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A tale gradually unfolds of a female character who spends lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those days tells to him what happened to her a decade before, when she accepted an proposal from a man who professed 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 interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the nature of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces all around.

There is another fire here: a passionate, compelling commitment to literature as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Examination

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our peril. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A third storyline comes finally to light—the story of a young woman whose early years was scarred by abuse and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to comply with social expectations or suffer more of the same. “[This entity] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or stay a monster.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a collection of poems to the night that are also a call to arms against the influences of capital.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Reality

Numerous British audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star books will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over human lives. In these first two books of what is projected to be a seven-book series, the blaze on board the ferry and the series of deceptive transactions that culminated in mass murder are a sinister underlying element, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or implication yet casting a deepening influence over everything that transpires. Certain readers may question how much it is feasible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone piece, when its aim and meaning are so intricately tied into a larger whole whose final form, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

There will be others—and I include myself as one of them—who will become enamored with the author's project purely as written art, as truly experimental writing whose moral and creative purpose are so profoundly entwined 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 statement. I will persist to follow this literary journey, wherever it leads.