Narrator: On a path known as Lovers' Path, winding through the forest on a beautiful Norwegian island, eleven young people lie still, pretending to be dead. They are trying to survive. A man in a police uniform, a figure of trust and authority, approaches them. He surveys the scene, then calmly begins to execute them one by one. A mobile phone rings. A text message arrives. "I love you." The man continues his work, shouting, "You will all die today, Marxists!" This horrifying scene, a jarring collision of youthful idealism and calculated hatred, is the central question at the heart of Åsne Seierstad's book, One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway. The book does not simply recount the tragedy of July 22, 2011; it meticulously dissects the life of the perpetrator and the vibrant lives of his victims to understand how such an event could unfold in a society known for its peace and openness.

Narrator: The story of Anders Breivik begins not with ideology, but with a profound and documented failure of connection. His birth in 1979 was an event his parents remembered with starkly different emotions. His father, Jens, a diplomat, saw it as a normal, happy occasion. His mother, Wenche, later described it as "dreadful" and "disgusting." This disconnect defined Anders's early years. After his parents' divorce, Wenche moved with Anders and his sister to a modern apartment complex called Silkestrå, a place designed to be an ideal environment for families. However, the ideal setting could not fix the internal turmoil.

Wenche struggled with depression and an inability to cope. Neighbors observed her erratic behavior and noted how withdrawn her children were. The situation became so concerning that social services intervened. A report from the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 1983 delivered a chilling assessment. It described a "profoundly pathological relationship" between mother and son, where Wenche would both cling to Anders symbiotically and reject him aggressively. The specialists concluded that to prevent "seriously abnormality in the boy’s development," Anders should be removed from the home and placed in foster care. Wenche strongly opposed this, and the intervention never happened. The system had flagged the danger, but the boy who would become a mass murderer was left in the very environment deemed toxic to his development.

Narrator: As Anders grew, his life became a series of failed attempts to achieve status and create an identity. As a teenager, feeling ordinary and insecure, he immersed himself in Oslo's graffiti scene. He adopted the tag 'Morg,' named after a ruthless executioner from Marvel Comics, and sought to become a "king" in this subculture of rebellion. He wanted recognition, but his affluent background made him an outsider, and he was eventually rejected by the community.

This pattern of seeking and failing repeated itself. He dropped out of school to become an entrepreneur, launching a series of businesses with the singular goal of getting rich. Each one failed, leaving him frustrated and blaming incompetent partners. He then turned to politics, joining the right-wing Progress Party Youth. He meticulously crafted his appearance, even undergoing plastic surgery on his nose to look more "Aryan," and worked to climb the party ladder. Yet again, he was overlooked, failing to secure a nomination for a political position. Each failure pushed him further into isolation, deepening his resentment against a system he felt had consistently denied him the recognition he craved.

Narrator: While Anders Breivik's world was shrinking, other lives in Norway were expanding with hope and a deep sense of community. In the north, Tone and Gunnar Sæbø built a life filled with love and a connection to nature. They raised two sons, Simon and Håvard. Simon, in particular, grew into a charismatic and empathetic young man, deeply involved in his community. He became the russ president for his graduating class, mediating disputes and delivering a powerful speech against bullying. He joined the Labour Party Youth (AUF), not just for the politics, but for the sense of belonging. He was a "man of nature," as he once told his mother, but also a man of the people.

In another part of Norway, the Rashid family was building a new life. Having fled the genocidal Al-Anfal campaign in Iraq, Mustafa and Bayan arrived as refugees, determined to integrate. Their daughters, Bano and Lara, navigated the complexities of a dual identity. Bano, ambitious and driven, embraced Norwegian society. She became a leader in her local AUF, wrote articles on equality, and dreamed of becoming a government minister. She once asked a successful politician, "How can I get your life?" These stories—of Simon's community leadership and Bano's political ambition—represent the very ideals of openness, engagement, and multiculturalism that Breivik came to despise. They were the vibrant, hopeful Norway he sought to destroy.

Narrator: After his political and business failures, Breivik retreated from the world. In 2006, he moved back into his mother's apartment and effectively disappeared for five years. His new reality was the online game World of Warcraft. For up to seventeen hours a day, he inhabited a virtual world where he could be 'Andersnordic,' a powerful guild leader. Here, in this digital meritocracy, he finally found the status that eluded him in real life.

But this digital world was also a gateway. He moved from gaming forums to the dark corners of the internet, consuming anti-Islamic, anti-feminist, and far-right extremist content. He became obsessed with the writings of bloggers like 'Fjordman,' who wrote of a "war" against the "Islamisation of Europe." In the isolation of his room, his resentment curdled into a concrete, violent ideology. He began writing his 1,500-page manifesto, a cut-and-paste declaration of war, and meticulously planning a "spectacular" operation that would finally make the world notice him.

Narrator: On July 22, 2011, these two worlds collided. Breivik, after detonating a massive bomb in Oslo, drove to Utøya island. The AUF summer camp was in full swing. The youth there, including Simon, Bano, and Lara, had just listened to a speech by former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. They were debating, singing, and falling in love. The atmosphere was one of hope for the future.

When Breivik arrived, disguised as a police officer, he exploited their trust. The initial gunshots were met with confusion. Raised in a culture of dialogue, some, like Bano, initially thought they could reason with him. The horrific reality quickly set in. In the chaos, there were acts of incredible courage. Simon Sæbø was seen helping others over a log on Lovers' Path, shielding them, before he was shot and killed. Bano was murdered on that same path, her dreams of a political future extinguished. The police response was tragically slow, hampered by communication failures and logistical blunders, allowing the massacre to continue for over an hour. The island, a symbol of hope, became a landscape of unimaginable horror.

Narrator: The most powerful and unsettling takeaway from One of Us is that Anders Breivik was not some unknowable monster who appeared from nowhere. He was a product of his society—a society that missed or ignored countless warning signs, from the child psychiatrist's report to his later, visible isolation. The book forces the reader to confront the terrifying idea that he was, in fact, "one of us"—a citizen of a modern, wealthy, and peaceful nation.

Ultimately, Åsne Seierstad's work is a profound challenge. It asks us to look beyond the simple, comforting label of "evil" and to examine the societal fractures where alienation, resentment, and online radicalization can fester. The book is not just a memorial to the 77 lives that were lost; it is a crucial warning about the quiet, insidious ways that extremism can grow in our midst, and a call to build communities where no one is allowed to fall so completely through the cracks.