🔗 Share this article

In the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff training combined with jammed safety doors accelerated the spread of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from burning laminates caused the deaths of 159 individuals. At first, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this suspect also perished in the fire and was unable to refute the accusations, the full truth about the disaster stayed hidden for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed investigation disclosed the fire was probably set deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified protagonist is riding on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the bus moves away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a landscape that is both alien and strangely known. She presents readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that volume, it is suggested that the root 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 Approach

This second installment begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer explains her struggle to write T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she writes, “we were meant / to follow him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the blaze / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the story indirectly, as a form of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A narrative slowly unfolds of a woman who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those weeks relates to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she agreed to an proposal from a figure who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the threads of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, compelling commitment to writing as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative comes finally to light—the story of a girl whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with social expectations or endure further harm. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two results: submit or remain a beast.” A alternative path is ultimately unveiled through a collection of poems to the darkness that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Readings: From Literature to Reality

Many British audience members of Nordenhof's series novels will reflect right away of the London tower tragedy, which, though accidental in cause, bears similarities in that the resulting disaster and loss of life can be linked at in part to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over human lives. In these initial books of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze on board the ship and the chain of deceptive transactions that ended in mass murder are a ominous underlying presence, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet casting a growing shadow over everything that occurs. Certain individuals may question how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone piece, when its purpose and significance are so deeply bound into a broader narrative whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's project purely as text, as truly innovative writing whose ethical and artistic purpose are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive devotion to writing as a statement. I intend to continue to pursue this literary journey, no matter where it leads.