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In the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze broke out on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate staff training combined with jammed safety doors aided the spread of the flames, while toxic cyanide gas released from combusting materials led to the deaths of 159 individuals. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a passenger—a truck driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this individual also perished in the fire and was unable to refute himself, the full facts regarding the disaster remained concealed for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive investigation revealed the blaze was probably started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

In the first volume of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, 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 “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to retrace the journey in pursuit of him, the character finds herself in 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 burdens of their troubled histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is suggested that the root of Kurt's disaffection may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his account by a individual known as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Narrative Style

This second installment begins with an extended poetic passage in which the narrator describes her challenge to compose T's story. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were supposed / to follow him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the blaze / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story obliquely, as a form of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A tale slowly emerges of a woman who experiences lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days relates to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a figure who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the elements of the two stories become more interwoven, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces all around.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Examination

Classic stories teach us that it is the devil who does bargains, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our peril. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to comply with societal norms or suffer more of the same. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are two results: surrender or stay a monster.” A third way out is ultimately revealed through a collection of poems to the darkness that are also a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Numerous British readers of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star books will reflect immediately of the London tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, shares similarities in that the ensuing disaster and fatalities can be linked at in part to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over human lives. In these first two books of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the blaze on board the ferry and the series of deceptive business deals that culminated in mass murder are a sinister underlying presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or implication yet projecting a growing influence over all that transpires. Certain readers may question how far it is possible to interpret this volume as a independent piece, when its aim and meaning are so deeply tied into a larger whole whose final form, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's project purely as written art, as properly innovative writing whose moral and creative purpose are so deeply entwined as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, attractive commitment to writing as a political act. I will continue to follow this literary journey, wherever it goes.