Money to Burn by Asta Olivia Nordenhof review – fire and energy in a new septology

The Guardian

09-02-2025

Into the narrow field of Scandinavian multi-decker novels – populated by Jon Fosse and Karl Ove Knausgård – strides a new star. Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Money to Burn, a bestseller and prize winner in Denmark, is the first novel in a seven-part series, inspired by a fire on a passenger ship off the coast of Norway in April 1990 that killed 159 people.
The book buzzes with electricity. What animates it initially is a story of love and hate between a couple named Maggie and Kurt. Kurt opens the book but Maggie gets more of our understanding, with the story wheeling around their lives together and apart: their romance, his violence, their daughter, Sofie, the pain of empty-nest syndrome. (Maggie keeps checking the drawers in Sofie's old room in case she's left anything behind.)
Scenes are short as the narrative dodges back and forth: in one line Maggie is remembering their romance, 'where he comes home and lifts her up on to the kitchen counter'; in the next she declares: 'No more men, they're pigs.' Everything is concentrated: when Maggie has sex, she feels 'a warm wide road is opening'; when she's frustrated by worldly trivia, her 'rage narrowed and came to a point'.
This approach is representative of the entire book. Its achievement is to be both scattered and focused, jumping from Maggie to Kurt and then the author herself addressing us: 'Maggie was 14 the first time she was raped. But raped is my word, not hers.' One person dies, then a few pages later we're back in their life; elsewhere, characters act as though they know they're in a book: 'I want to be happy on the first page of this chapter, Maggie says.' It's the emotional depth running through the book that holds everything together, such as the powerful scene where a young Maggie tries to reason with her rapist, pitifully unaware of the forces at play.
Then, in the middle, Nordenhof tells us about the Scandinavian Star passenger ferry, the fire, a likely insurance scam – and the deaths. Her anger boils off the page. 'If there's anything rare about this case, it is only that the victims of capitalism … aren't usually located in Scandinavia.'
There are hints to a loose connection between the fire and Kurt and Maggie's story, but even without this, the energy of the narrative matches the rest of the novel. The overall sense is of chaotic life rushing past. Later in the book, we get a deeper understanding of Kurt – who we thought was a bastard, and maybe still is – as we learn about his youth in more brief scenes. Maggie's story feels like a whole life; Kurt's less so. Some readers will want a more traditional flow, but the intensity of the details we're given would make that hard to sustain. (The same intensity, though, means that Money to Burn is a book with almost no room for the release valve of comedy. I counted two jokes.)
The next volume of the Scandinavian Star series, The Devil Book, comes out in September, and will be a standalone novel. Will we see Maggie or Kurt again? Will it all connect in the end? It's intriguing, it's maddening, it's exciting. I'm in.
Money to Burn by Asta Olivia Nordenhof is published by Jonathan Cape (£14.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply