On his first day of school, a teacher welcomes Audun to the class by asking him to describe his former life in the country. But there are stories about his family he would prefer to keep to himself, such as the weeks he spent living in a couple of cardboard boxes, and the day of his little brother's birth, when his drunken father fired three shots into the ceiling. So he refuses to talk and refuses to take off his sunglasses. In his late teens Audun is the only one of his family who remains with his mother in their home in a working-class district of Oslo. He delivers newspapers when he is not in school and talks for hours about Jack London and Ernest Hemingway with his best friend Arvid. But he's not sure that school is the right path for him, feeling that life holds other possibilities. Auden Sletten, a working-class teen in Oslo, styles himself after tough characters in novels by his literary heroes Jack London and Ernest Hemingway. He prefers not to think about his past or his absent, often drunk, father, and chafes under the limitations of school. When his father appears once again, Audun sets out to see what else life has to offer.