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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient crew training along with malfunctioning safety doors accelerated the spread of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas released from burning laminates led to the deaths of 159 people. At first, the tragedy was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of arson. Since this suspect too perished in the incident and was unable to defend the accusations, the full facts regarding the disaster stayed concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive investigation revealed the blaze was likely set intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Literary Series: An Overview

In the first volume of Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified narrator is riding on a public transport through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the street. As the bus moves away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to retrace the journey in search of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces us to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the final pages of that book, it is suggested that the source of Kurt's discontent may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his account by a individual referred to as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator explains her struggle to compose T's story. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the blaze / on the ferry / had successfully been / ignited.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the story 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 entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A tale gradually emerges of a female character who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks relates to him what occurred to her a ten years before, when she accepted an proposal from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the elements of the two stories become more intertwined, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Examination

Literature teach us that it is the devil who does deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our peril. But what if the narrator herself is the devil? A additional storyline eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to comply with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[The devil] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two results: surrender or stay a monster.” A alternative path is ultimately unveiled through a series of verses to the darkness that are also a call to arms against the influences of capital.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Reality

Many UK audience members of the author's series books will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, shares parallels in that the resulting disaster and loss of life can be attributed at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of putting profit over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze aboard the ferry and the series of fraudulent business deals that culminated in mass murder are a ominous background presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or implication yet casting a growing shadow over all that transpires. Some individuals may question how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its purpose and significance are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with the author's project purely as written art, as properly experimental literature whose moral and artistic purpose are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive devotion to writing as a political act. I intend to continue to pursue this series, wherever it goes.