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In the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew training along with jammed fire doors aided the spread of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning laminates caused the deaths of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of arson. Given that this individual too died in the incident and was unable to refute himself, the full facts about the event remained hidden for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the fire was probably set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: An Overview

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, the preceding volume, an unidentified narrator is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she notices an older man on the sidewalk. As the bus moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in search of him, the character enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that volume, it is implied that the root of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a poor investment made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style

The Devil Book begins with an lengthy prose poem in which the writer explains her struggle to compose T's narrative. “Within this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the story indirectly, as a form of parable. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the dark force.”

A narrative slowly unfolds of a woman who spends lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days relates to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she accepted an offer from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the threads of the two stories become more interwoven, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the nature of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose early years was marred by abuse and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to comply with social expectations or suffer further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of results: submit or stay a monster.” A third way out is ultimately unveiled through a series of poems to the night that are also a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Connections and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Many UK audience members of the author's series books will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and loss of life can be linked at in part to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over people. In these initial books of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the fire on board the ship and the chain of fraudulent business deals that ended in mass murder are a sinister underlying element, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of detail or implication yet casting a growing shadow over everything that transpires. Some readers may doubt how much it is possible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone work, when its aim and meaning are so deeply tied into a larger whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as among them—who will become enamored with the author's endeavor purely as text, as truly experimental literature whose moral and creative purpose are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we require / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, magnetic commitment to writing as a political act. I intend to continue to follow this series, wherever it leads.