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During the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating fire erupted aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew preparedness combined with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while toxic cyanide gas emitted from burning materials caused the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the tragedy was attributed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a record of arson. Since this suspect also died in the incident and was unable to refute the accusations, the complete facts about the disaster remained hidden for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the blaze was likely started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

Within the first volume of Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle moves away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to retrace the route in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the burdens of their conflicted histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the root of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a poor financial decision made on his account by a individual referred to as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

This second installment begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the narrator describes her challenge to write T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has assigned herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a type of parable. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a woman who spends lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks tells to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she accepted an offer from a figure who professed to be the devil to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at the very least that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, compelling commitment to literature as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who makes bargains, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with social expectations or endure further harm. “[This entity] understands that in the scenario you've created for it, there are two outcomes: surrender or remain a beast.” A third way out is finally revealed through a collection of verses to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the influences of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Real Events

Numerous British readers of the author's Scandinavian Star books will think right away of the London tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, bears parallels in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be linked at least partly to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over people. In these initial volumes of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, 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 flashes of information or inference yet casting a growing shadow over all that occurs. Some readers may question how much it is possible to read this volume as a independent work, when its purpose and significance are so deeply tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as among them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as text, as properly innovative writing whose moral and creative purpose are so deeply interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we require / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, magnetic devotion to writing as a political act. I will persist to follow this literary journey, no matter where it leads.