Elling A Novel

"The endearing and hilarious story of two just-released mental patients - one shy and imaginative, the other big and dumb - who struggle to find their place in the real world." "The Norwegian government has decided that Elling and his roommate, Kjell Bjarne, are ready to leave the Broynes Rehabilitation Center and move into an apartment in Oslo together. Told to live like "normal" people, the neurotic Elling and the oafish Kjell Bjarne quickly find themselves overwhelmed with important life lessons: phone sex lines cost a lot of money, kittens do not belong on the metro, and when you're invited to a friend's house for dinner, it's best not to arrive five hours early." "Gradually, carefully, our heroes reach out beyond each other - Elling to a reclusive old man he meets at a poetry reading, Kjell Bjarne to a pregnant neighbor abandoned by her boyfriend - and in so doing find the strength not just to rely on someone else, but also to be relied on themselves." "Sweet, sarcastic, and moving, the original Norwegian novel was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film in 2001."--BOOK JACKET.