After a two-year stint at Brøynes Psychiatric Treatment Center, Elling is set to return to the so-called real world. Along with his somewhat denser roommate, Kjell Bjarne, he has been granted an apartment in Oslo with orders to take care of himself. For someone who finds crossing a restaurant floor comparable to a South Pole expedition, his new life involves a number of challenges that need surmounting. With impressive willpower, slow-developing courage and a certain amount of help, Elling and Kjell Bjarne dodder down some unfamiliar roads. And when Kjell Bjarne meets a woman, and Norwegian contemporary poetry makes Elling vomit, situations occur where life’s frightened boys are forced to give it all they’ve got – and then some.