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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze broke out aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff training combined with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas released from combusting laminates led to the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of arson. Since this suspect also died in the incident and was unable to refute himself, the full truth about the event remained concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary revealed the fire was likely set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unnamed narrator is traveling on a public transport through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the bus drives away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the route in pursuit of him, the narrator finds herself in a landscape that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She presents readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the burdens of their conflicted histories. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the source of the character's discontent may stem from a poor investment made on his account by a individual referred to as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Narrative Style

The Devil Book opens with an extended prose poem in which the writer describes her struggle to compose T's story. “In this second volume,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the blaze / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the tale indirectly, as a type of allegory. “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 businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a female character who experiences quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those weeks tells to him what happened to her a decade earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a figure who professed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the elements of the two stories become more interwoven, we start to believe that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Examination

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who does bargains, not God, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A third storyline eventually emerges—the account of a girl whose early years was scarred by abuse and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with social expectations or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows 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 verses to the darkness that are also a rallying cry against the influences of capital.

Connections and Interpretations: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous UK audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, shares parallels in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting profit over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the blaze on board the ferry and the series of fraudulent business deals that culminated in multiple deaths are a ominous underlying element, showing themselves only in brief glimpses of information or implication yet casting a growing influence over everything that occurs. Some readers may doubt how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone piece, when its purpose and meaning are so deeply tied into a broader narrative whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as properly innovative literature whose moral and creative intent are so deeply interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we require / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive commitment to writing as a statement. I will persist to follow this series, wherever it goes.