Greetings Booklovers!

Welcome to our first discussion of Anxious People. We will be discussing Chapters 1-28 here, so if you read ahead, please do not write any spoilers beyond this section.

Summary of Chapters 1 to 28

After a bank robbery gone wrong, a Bank Robber runs across the street to an apartment which was holding a viewing. After several hours, the Bank Robber gave up and eight people who had been held hostage (7 prospective buyers and 1 real estate agent) were released and brought in for interviews with the police.

Jack and Jim

After the Bank Robber released all the hostages, a gunshot was heard and the police stormed the apartment and found the floor covered in blood. The police can’t find the Bank Robber and believe they are still in the apartment hiding or that one of the hostages helped them escape since they were all released at once. Jack and his father, Jim are the first on scene and are googling how to handle the hostage negotiations. The police are concerned there is a bomb in the stairwell but it turns out to just be an overturned box of Christmas lights. The Bank Robber is described to them as masked and fairly small. A hostage negotiator was on the way but stuck in traffic and never arrived. Zara explains there were 5 prospective buyers – 2 couples and a woman. Plus Zara and the Real Estate Agent and a Rabbit for a total of 8 hostages.

Real Estate Agent

The police are interviewing the Real Estate Agent and struggle to gain information as she is clearly in shock. The Real Estate Agent reveals that the pistol from the Bank Robber was not real and that she was never frightened. Once she learns it is real, she is even more shocked.

Man on the Bridge

Ten years ago, a man was standing on a bridge that is visible from the apartment where the hostages were held. The man explained he had two children and had just lost everything in the financial crisis from a bank going bankrupt. The bank takes no responsibility for telling him to invest his money and then take out loans against the investment. When he seeks a loan from a second bank, a woman there explains Moral Hazard and how the bank has sawed off the life-saving branch he was on to save themselves. She declines his loan request. The man wrote a letter to the woman at the bank who told him about Moral Hazard and then the man jumped. The woman carried the note in her handbag for 10 years and then she met the Bank Robber.

Jack

The first person to see the Man on the Bridge 10 years ago was teenage Jack who tried to help the man. It wasn’t this incident that made Jack want to be a police officer like his dad Jim, but the one the following week which was a teen girl who didn’t jump, Nadia who Jack saved from jumping. Nadia later becomes a psychologist. Adult Jack takes all his life savings and buys his addict sister a stay in rehab but she leaves after two weeks.

London

London, a bank employee, explains to the police how the Bank Robber (39 years old) handed her a note and asked for 6500 kronor (a small amount) and that since it was a cashless bank, there was no way to pay them. After London said she would call the cops, the Bank Robber fled to the apartments where they stumbled into the viewing. At this point, London had posted on social media and a crowd of media was already on the street and there was nowhere for the Bank Robber to go so the hostage situation began.

The Bank Robber

The Bank Robber is divorced because their spouse was cheating on them with the Bank Robber’s boss who later fired the Bank Robber. They are in danger of losing custody of their two girls. They have no permanent job and their first month wages are being withheld. They finally find a place to rent but can’t afford it without their monthly wages. Because of their upbringing by a mother who was an addict, they just accept their circumstances and don’t go for help. They go to the bank with what they think is a toy pistol and give the note for one month’s rent, but later find out the gun is real. In the apartment stairwell, they lose a drawing of a monkey, a frog and an elk which represents the nicknames of their two daughters and themself. It is the day before New Year’s Eve.

The Bank Robber enters the apartment to:

Zara, a financially wealthy woman in her 50s.

Roger, a middle-aged man in a checkered shirt.

Anna-Lena, Roger’s wife

A very old woman

Ro, A pregnant woman

Julia, Ro’s wife

Zara

Zara is combative in her interview with the police. They question why someone of her wealth would be looking to buy this lower priced apartment. She goes to viewings for leisure with no intent to buy them and all the apartments had to have a balcony with a view of the bridge. She runs a bank. She is seeing a psychologist, Nadia, because she is having trouble sleeping. She has an unopened letter in her bag that would explain everything to her psychologist but she doesn’t bring it up. Zara received the letter shortly after the Man on the Bridge jumped. Zara witnessed teenage Nadia wanting to jump off the bridge a week later and watched Jack save her. She followed her career and ended up her patient.

Characters

Jack — A young police officer who is very dedicated to his job

Jim — Jack's father, a more lax police officer with many years of experience

Bank Robber — The perpetrator of the alleged bank robbery and hostage situation

London – Bank employee

Real Estate Agent — The agent responsible for hosting the apartment viewing

Zara — A depressed banker who attends apartment viewings for leisure

Roger — A real estate investor who takes the business very seriously

Anna-Lena — Roger's wife

Julia — A young pregnant woman searching for an apartment to raise her family

Ro — Julia's wife

Lennart —>! An actor who is also an apartment viewing disrupter!<

Estelle — An older woman who attends the apartment viewing

See you in the Comments below!

Next week we will discuss Chapters 29 to 52 on Wednesday, October 18th. Reading Schedule Link