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During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff training combined with jammed fire doors aided the propagation of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas released from combusting materials caused the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the tragedy was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this suspect too perished in the fire and was unable to defend himself, the complete truth regarding the disaster remained concealed for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the blaze was likely set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unnamed narrator is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the bus drives away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Driven to repeat the route in search of him, the character enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She introduces 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 Kurt's disaffection may stem from a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a man known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style

This second installment begins with an extended prose poem in which the writer explains her challenge to compose T's story. “In this volume, two,” she states, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the blaze / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the story obliquely, as a form of parable. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A tale slowly unfolds of a female character who spends lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she agreed to an offer from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the threads of the two stories become more interwoven, we start to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, magnetic commitment to literature as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination

Literature instruct us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to conform with societal norms or suffer further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are two outcomes: surrender or remain a monster.” A third way out is finally revealed through a collection of poems to the darkness that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Interpretations: From Fiction to Real Events

Many UK audience members of Nordenhof's series novels will think immediately of the London tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, shares similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and fatalities can be linked at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over human lives. In these initial volumes of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the fire aboard the ferry and the chain of fraudulent business deals that culminated in mass murder are a sinister background element, revealing themselves only in brief flashes of detail or inference yet projecting a deepening shadow over all that transpires. Some individuals may question how much it is feasible to interpret this volume as a independent work, when its purpose and significance are so intricately bound into a larger whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's project purely as text, as properly innovative literature whose ethical and artistic intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we require / that as well.” There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic devotion to the craft as a political act. I intend to continue to follow this literary journey, wherever it leads.