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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient staff preparedness combined with jammed fire doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while toxic cyanide gas emitted from burning laminates caused the deaths of 159 individuals. At first, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this suspect also perished in the fire and was not able to defend himself, the complete truth regarding the disaster remained hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the fire was likely set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse

Within the first volume of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is riding on a public transport through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the street. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in search of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the source of the character's disaffection may stem from a poor financial decision made on his account by a man referred to as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

This second installment opens with an extended prose poem in which the writer describes her challenge 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 waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the story indirectly, as a form of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A tale slowly unfolds of a woman who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and over the course of those days tells to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she agreed to an offer from a man who professed to be the devil to grant all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the elements of the two stories become more intertwined, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is multiple, for there are devils everywhere.

There is another fire here: an ardent, compelling commitment to literature as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Classic stories instruct us that it is the devil who does bargains, not God, and that we enter into them at our peril. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative comes finally to light—the account of a young woman whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to comply with societal norms or suffer further harm. “[This entity] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are two outcomes: surrender or remain a monster.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a collection of poems to the night that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Interpretations: From Fiction to Reality

Numerous British readers of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in cause, bears parallels in that the resulting disaster and loss of life can be linked at in part to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a seven-book series, the fire aboard the ship and the chain of deceptive transactions that culminated in mass murder are a ominous background element, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet casting a growing shadow over all that transpires. Certain individuals may question how much it is feasible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone work, when its aim and meaning are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I include myself as one of them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as properly innovative literature whose ethical and artistic purpose are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive devotion to the craft as a political act. I will persist to pursue this literary journey, no matter where it goes.