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During the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew training along with malfunctioning fire doors aided the propagation of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning laminates led to the deaths of 159 individuals. At first, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this individual also died in the fire and was not able to defend himself, the full truth regarding the event stayed hidden for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the fire was probably set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse

Within the initial book of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the street. As the bus moves away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the route in search of him, the narrator enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the pressures of their troubled pasts. In the concluding section of that volume, it is implied that the source of Kurt's disaffection may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer describes her struggle to write T's narrative. “Within this volume, two,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story obliquely, as a type 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 female character who spends quarantine in London with a virtual stranger and over the course of those days relates to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she agreed to an offer from a figure who professed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who does bargains, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional narrative comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose childhood was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to conform with societal norms or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two outcomes: submit or remain a beast.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a collection of poems to the night that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the influences of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Reality

Numerous UK audience members of Nordenhof's series novels will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, bears similarities in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of putting financial gain over human lives. In these initial volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the blaze aboard the ship and the chain of fraudulent business deals that ended in mass murder are a sinister underlying element, showing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or inference yet casting a deepening shadow over everything that transpires. Some readers may doubt how far it is feasible to read this volume as a stand-alone work, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately tied into a larger whole whose final form, at this stage, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as properly experimental literature whose ethical and creative intent are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: an intense, magnetic commitment to the craft as a political act. I will persist to follow this series, no matter where it leads.