The story so far\ufeff: \ufeffearlier this year, Danish author Asta Olivia Nordenhof\u2019s Money to Burn was published in English, the first novel in a projected seven-book series, and anyone who didn\u2019t read it missed a treat. The overall series is titled Scandinavian Star\ufeff after a passenger ferry that caught fire off the coast of Sweden in 1990, killing\u00a0159 people.<\/p>\n
Money to Burn alternated the story of the ship and the likelihood of an insurance scam behind the fire \u2013 \u201ccapitalism is a massacre\u201d \u2013 with an account of a turbulent relationship between a couple named Maggie and Kurt. The telling was turbulent too, switching and jumping, with Nordenhof herself popping up in the narrative. It was an electric performance, equal parts exciting and maddening, and by the end we were on the brink of making further connections with those responsible for the ship\u2019s fire.<\/p>\n
How could Nordenhof follow a book as anarchic as that? The answer is the only one possible: she decided not to. The second volume, The Devil Book, opens with a foreword in free verse. Of the intended sequel, she says, \u201cI wrote three versions \/ of that book \/ and hated \/ every one\u201d, so instead has given us \u201can erotic thriller \/ about businessmen and \/ the devil\u201d. It will be, she adds \u2013 with the sparky sharpness familiar to readers of the first book \u2013 \u201cyour job \/ to make it fit \/ into the series \/ I mean really \/ I can\u2019t \/ do the whole thing \/ by myself\u201d\ufeff.<\/p>\n
The intensity that ran through Money to Burn begins more slowly here, given that the opening describes the least romantic possible beginning to a relationship: a chance encounter on a replacement bus service. The narrator, who\u2019s presented as Nordenhof herself, meets a man \u2013 \u201cI lied, as usual, about who I am\u201d \u2013 and agrees to stay in his flat in London while she writes her next book.<\/p>\n
This sets up a dual time scheme, where the narrator recounts her days with her London host \u2013 an apparent gent who each day leaves her a note with a heart, and a croissant, before leaving her alone \u2013 and her past relationship with a man she calls T. \u201cIt\u2019s been more than 10 years since I left T with a suitcase full of cash in my possession\ufeff,\u201d she opens, irresistibly. What she wants to learn from writing the story is not whether \u201cT is a devil [but rather] if T is a devil, what does that make me?\u201d<\/p>\n
Every page of this short book sizzles with energy \u2013 anything longer would be overwhelming<\/p>\n
Her life with T is really the heart of the book. The narrator became a sex worker after her benefits were cut (\u201cSuicide or prostitution, I thought on the way home\u201d) and T was a client who one day asked her \u2013 told her \u2013 to become his companion on a forthcoming trip. She would be well paid. As with her London host, she said yes. \u201cWhat was going through my mind? Hard to explain. Think of a storm inside a large and empty hall.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Devil Book is loaded with that sort of heightened imagery \u2013 \u201cmy ruined heart\u201d, \u201cmy fabulous will to destroy\u201d \u2013 that would seem over\ufeff the\ufeff top if the emotions didn\u2019t run just as high. The two relationships in the book, with T and with the narrator\u2019s London host, escalate differently, sometimes dangerously. As with Money to Burn, every page of this short book \u2013 anything longer would be overwhelming \u2013 sizzles with energy, beautifully conveyed in Caroline Waight\u2019s translation. The themes\ufeff of the previous volume are reiterated: capitalism, women\u2019s submission, patriarchy (\u201cfuck men!\u201d).<\/p>\n
Nordenhof has a sort of literary X factor, cutting her story down to only the most interesting parts. As Scandinavian septologies go, it\u2019s more fun than Jon Fosse\u2019s, more ballsy than Solvej Balle\u2019s. The final section, where the fictional structure is stripped back to the narrator\u2019s thoughts from a mental hospital, fumes with fury.<\/p>\n
Late in the book, Nordenhof writes of capitalist society: \u201cthere is nothing made \/ we can\u2019t \/ unmake \/ if we want to \/ and there are enough of us\ufeff\u201d. It might be her manifesto for the novel too.<\/p>\n