One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway

Overview

Åsne Seierstad delivers a careful, immersive narrative that traces Anders Behring Breivik's path to becoming Norway's deadliest modern mass killer and examines the shock that followed the July 22, 2011 attacks. The book moves between the attacker's biography, the hour-by-hour sequence of the Oslo bombing and the Utøya island massacre, and the reactions of survivors, families, police and politicians, creating a layered portrait of a national trauma.
Seierstad combines reporting, testimony and documentary material to situate a single act of extreme violence within a broader social and political landscape, aiming to explain how a well-educated, socially awkward Norwegian could evolve into a politically motivated mass murderer.

Breivik's life and radicalization

The narrative follows Breivik from childhood into adulthood, exploring family relationships, educational experiences and the isolation that shaped him. Attention is paid to his use of online forums, gaming cultures and extremist networks across Europe, which amplified grievance into ideology and provided templates for action.
Seierstad reconstructs how personal resentments, an obsession with identity and exposure to far-right polemics fused into a coherent but extreme worldview, culminating in the 1, 500-page manifesto that outlined his motives and aims.

The attacks and immediate aftermath

The book recounts the dual-stage attack with journalistic precision: a car bomb in central Oslo that killed eight people and damaged government buildings, followed hours later by Breivik's disguised arrival at the Labour Party youth camp on Utøya, where he systematically targeted teenagers. Seierstad chronicles survivors' experiences and the confusion of that day, the slow realization of the scale of the crime, and the logistical and moral challenges facing emergency responders.
Coverage extends to the fraught questions about police preparedness and response times, the gap between expectation and reality in a country unaccustomed to such violence, and how official and civilian efforts unfolded amid grief and anger.

Victims, survivors and national grief

Personal stories form the emotional center of the account: testimonies from families who lost children, survivors who hid and swam for their lives, and communities attempting to make sense of senseless loss. Seierstad emphasizes the youthfulness of many victims and the rupture the massacre created in ordinary Norwegian life, where notions of safety and consensus were profoundly shaken.
The book also highlights acts of solidarity and the rituals of public mourning that followed, portraying both private sorrow and a collective search for meaning and resilience.

Political and social context

Seierstad situates the attacks within debates over immigration, multiculturalism and national identity, showing how polarizing discourse and transnational far-right currents provided a receptive environment for Breivik's ideas. The narrative examines how fringe ideologies crossed borders online and fed into domestic anxieties, while also probing Norway's political culture and how it responded to a violent outlier.
The work asks uncomfortable questions about responsibility, the limits of tolerance in open societies, and the ways democratic states must guard against internal threats without sacrificing the values they defend.

Trial, accountability and aftermath

Coverage of the trial and legal aftermath addresses the determinations about Breivik's mental state, the court's finding of criminal responsibility and the imposition of Norway's maximum preventive detention, which allows for indefinite extension. Seierstad documents debates about punishment, security reforms, and efforts to memorialize victims while confronting the risk of extremist glorification.
The book shows that legal closure did not end the national conversation; policy, policing and public memory remained contested terrain.

Seierstad's method and reception

Seierstad writes in a narrative-journalistic mode, stitching interviews, court records and online material into a readable chronology that foregrounds human voices. The approach won praise for its empathy toward victims and its refusal to reduce the event to sensationalism, though it also sparked debate about the ethics of detailing a killer's motives and the risk of amplifying extremist messages.
Ultimately, the work aims to be both a chronicle of an atrocity and an inquiry into the social and psychological currents that made it possible, offering a sober account of how a democratic society reckons with catastrophic internal violence.