Three days after the jeweler’s death, Wilder returns from shooting a documentary on prison unrest. To his disappointment the high-rise appears normal—he enjoyed the skirmishes of the previous week. As he approaches the building, the illusion of normalcy disappears: The front-row cars are covered with debris, the deserted lobby marked with graffiti, and the elevators stalled on the upper floors. Additionally, Wilder notices the broken window on the 40th floor: “[T]he asterisk of cracked glass reminded Wilder of some kind of cryptic notation, a transfer on the fuselage of a wartime aircraft marking a kill” (49).

In his apartment Wilder finds his children asleep and his wife, Helen, in bed, the blinds drawn against the midday sun. Helen attributes their languor to the broken air-conditioning and the shuttering of the building’s school and playgrounds. Helen comes out of her malaise to beg that they move out of the building, or at least to a higher floor. Despite feeling oppressed by the 38 floors of concrete above him, Wilder is determined to keep their apartment. The building is a mountain Wilder longs to test himself against. This challenge is not only physical but mental: Through his documentary on the building—“another prison documentary,” in Helen’s words (51)—Wilder hopes to understand the nature of the high-rise and its residents.