Jackson: Before he murdered 77 people, Anders Breivik’s biggest life project was selling fake university diplomas online. He was also obsessed with plastic surgery to get a more 'Aryan' nose. This isn't the story of a simple monster; it's far stranger and more disturbing. Olivia: It’s so bizarrely mundane, isn't it? That juxtaposition of petty vanity and epic violence is exactly what makes this story so chilling. Today we are diving into one of the most difficult but essential books of the last decade: One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Åsne Seierstad. Jackson: And the author, Åsne Seierstad, is no ordinary journalist. She spent years as a war correspondent in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. It's haunting to think she came home to Norway only to find a war zone of a different kind, one that she felt compelled to understand from the inside out. Olivia: Absolutely. And the power of this book, which was named one of the Ten Best Books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, is how it refuses to just focus on the killer. It tells a much bigger story by placing his life in parallel with the vibrant, hopeful lives he chose to destroy.

Jackson: That seems like the perfect place to start. The title itself, One of Us, is such a provocation. How does the book explore that idea of him being a product of the same world as his victims? Olivia: It does it by creating this incredibly powerful, and ultimately heartbreaking, triptych of lives. On one side, you have the story of a young man named Simon Sæbø, from the north of Norway. He is, in every sense, the embodiment of youthful idealism. He’s charismatic, deeply involved in his community, and becomes a rising star in the Labour Party Youth wing, the AUF. Jackson: The kind of kid who actually enjoys local politics and wants to make a difference. Olivia: Exactly. The book details how he successfully reopens the local youth club, how he gives this incredibly moving speech on Norway’s National Day, and how his parents, Tone and Gunnar, are just filled with this quiet, profound pride. He represents a Norway that is engaged, communal, and forward-looking. He’s building connections everywhere he goes. Jackson: Wow, so he's the kind of kid every parent dreams of. And while Simon is out there building community, what is Breivik doing during these same years? Olivia: That’s the chilling contrast. While Simon is learning to connect, Breivik is learning to dis-connect. The book takes us back to his childhood, to a modern apartment complex called Silkestrå. From a very early age, there were warning signs. Child protective services were involved. A psychiatric report from when he was just four years old described him as "clingy and difficult," and noted his mother Wenche’s own psychological struggles. She had this deeply ambivalent, almost toxic relationship with him, simultaneously pulling him close and aggressively rejecting him. Jackson: So from the very beginning, there's this profound lack of a stable, loving connection. It’s like he’s performing a personality instead of developing one. Olivia: That’s a perfect way to put it. He’s a void, looking for something to fill it. And the book presents a third path, which makes Breivik’s anti-immigrant rage even more potent. It tells the story of the Rashid family, who fled the genocide in Iraq. Jackson: Right, I remember reading about them. They were the ultimate outsiders trying to become insiders. Olivia: Precisely. And their daughter, Bano, is so full of life and ambition. She’s driven, she gets involved in politics just like Simon, and she has this deep desire to belong. There’s this beautiful, poignant story about how she saves up money from her summer job to buy a bunad—a traditional Norwegian folk costume. Jackson: A symbol of being truly Norwegian. Olivia: Yes. But on National Day, she feels like an imposter, like she doesn't have the right to wear it because it's not tied to her ancestry. Her father, in a moment of beautiful wisdom, tells her, "The bunad is yours. You bought it." He even invents a funny story about a Kurdish ancestor falling for a Viking to make her feel at home. Here you have a family who escaped unimaginable horror, working tirelessly to integrate, to become 'one of us.' And at the same time, you have Breivik, born with every privilege of that society, deciding he doesn't belong and that people like the Rashids are the reason why. Jackson: It’s the story of two very different kinds of striving. One is striving to join the community, the other is striving to destroy it.

Olivia: And that destructive impulse didn't just appear out of thin air. Seierstad meticulously traces how a series of personal failures led him to find a new, much darker identity. Jackson: This is the part that's so unsettling. He wasn't born a monster. So where does it start? The book points to... graffiti? Olivia: It does. As a teenager, he felt ordinary and insecure. So he reinvents himself as 'Morg,' a tagger. He gets the name from a Marvel Comics character, an executioner. For him, graffiti wasn't about art; it was about status. It was a subculture with its own rules and hierarchies, and he wanted to be a 'king.' Jackson: So it's a performance. He's always looking for a stage, a way to be seen as important. Olivia: Always. There's a story where a classmate tells him that to be a king, you have to tag in visible, risky places. He immediately walks across the street and tags a jeweller's shop in broad daylight. It’s all about the bold gesture, the claim to power. Jackson: When graffiti doesn't work, what's next? I remember reading about his bizarre business ventures. The fake diploma business? Olivia: Yes, another attempt at status, this time financial. He starts an online company, diplomaservices.com, selling high-quality fake degrees. And for a while, it works. He makes his first million. It’s illegal, it’s a sham, but it gives him the money and the feeling of success he craves. But like everything else, it eventually crumbles. Jackson: So it's a pattern: find a system, try to become a 'king,' fail or get rejected, and then retreat further into a fantasy world. Olivia: Exactly. And his next retreat was his most profound. After his businesses failed, he moved back in with his mother and spent nearly five years almost entirely online, playing the game World of Warcraft. Jackson: I’ve heard about this. He became a guild leader, right? Olivia: He did. He became 'Justitiarius Andersnordic,' the leader of a guild called 'Virtue.' In the game, he could finally be the commander he couldn't be in real life. He was respected, he gave orders, he controlled his environment. The real world was a place of failure; the virtual world was a place of power. Jackson: And that fantasy of power bleeds into reality with his manifesto. Olivia: It’s the final, and most horrific, performance. His 1,500-page manifesto, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, is his script. It’s a rambling, plagiarized text, stealing heavily from other anti-Islamic writers, that lays out his ideology. He casts himself as a 'Justiciar Knight Commander' in a holy war against 'cultural Marxism' and the 'Islamisation of Europe.' The book, the uniform he designs, the weapons he names—it's all part of the elaborate fantasy he constructed to give his life the meaning he felt it lacked. Jackson: He couldn't be a successful tagger or a successful CEO, so he decided to become a saviour-knight in his own twisted movie. And the rest of the world was just collateral damage.

Jackson: Okay, so he has the ideology and the plan. The book then shifts to the day of the attacks, and it's not just a story of one man's evil, but of a system that was completely, shockingly unprepared. Olivia: It's one of the most damning parts of the book. Seierstad lays out the systemic failures of the emergency response with forensic detail. For instance, after the bomb goes off in Oslo, a witness, Andreas Olsen, calls the police. He gives a perfect description of Breivik—the fake police uniform, the pistol, the van's registration number. Jackson: That's a golden tip. That should have been blasted out everywhere. Olivia: You would think. The operator wrote it down on a yellow Post-it note. That note sat on a desk, unread, while Breivik drove out of the city towards Utøya island. Jackson: You're kidding me. A Post-it note? Olivia: A Post-it note. And it gets worse. Norway's only police helicopter was unavailable. Why? The crew was on holiday due to summer budget cuts. When the elite Delta force was finally dispatched to Utøya, their small rubber dinghy was so overloaded with gear and officers that the engine flooded and died in the middle of the lake. They had to be rescued by civilian boaters. Jackson: That's just staggering. It's a comedy of errors, except the consequences are beyond tragic. It feels like the system itself was naive, that it just couldn't conceive of something like this happening. Olivia: The Prime Minister at the time, Jens Stoltenberg, famously said Norway's response would be 'more democracy, more openness, and more humanity. But never naivety.' And while the nation's moral response was anything but naive, the attack exposed a deep naivety in its preparedness. The system wasn't ready. Jackson: And the trial became another stage for Breivik, didn't it? The whole debate over whether he was sane or insane seems central to the aftermath. Olivia: It was the heart of the matter. The prosecution, and the initial psychiatric report, argued he was paranoid schizophrenic—insane. This would have sent him to a psychiatric facility, not prison. But a second report, and Breivik himself, argued he was sane. Jackson: Why would he want to be declared sane? Olivia: Because if he was insane, his actions were just the product of a diseased mind. If he was sane, then his manifesto, his ideology, had to be taken seriously as a political statement. It would validate his 'mission.' In the end, the court agreed with the second report and declared him criminally sane, sentencing him to preventative detention. He got the stage he always wanted. Jackson: So in a way, he won that battle. He forced the world to look at his hateful ideas instead of dismissing him as simply mad.

Jackson: So, after all this, what's the big takeaway? The book is so heavy, so detailed. What's the one thing that sticks with you? Olivia: That the line between 'us' and 'them' is terrifyingly thin. Breivik wasn't an alien who landed in Norway. He was a product of the same prosperous, peaceful society as his victims—a society that offers incredible opportunity, but also allows for profound isolation, for online echo chambers, for a festering resentment to grow unchecked. Jackson: He’s a warning. Olivia: He’s a terrifying warning. He shows how a combination of personal failure, extreme narcissism, and a desperate need for a grand narrative can, when it finds the right toxic ideology online, create a catastrophe. He wasn't an ideologue who turned to violence; he was a failure who found an ideology that justified the violence he craved. Jackson: It makes you wonder... how many other lonely, failing young men are out there right now, building their own manifestos online? It's a chilling thought. Olivia: It is. And Seierstad's book is so important because it forces us to look at that, to not turn away from the uncomfortable truth that this darkness can grow right here, among us. Jackson: A powerful, essential, and incredibly difficult read. Thanks for walking us through it, Olivia. Olivia: Thank you, Jackson. Jackson: This is Aibrary, signing off.