A wife, a flat, a novel

With an ironic glance at the 1960s, Wilhelm Genazino tells of the stumbling career of a young man who dreams to become a writer but has to content himself, for the time being, with writing miscellaneous news for the local paper.
A young man of seventeen is expelled from school. Such things happen. Perhaps he should console himself with the fact that many a genius failed at school before embarking upon the road to success? His pratically-minded mother thinks differently and starts looking for an apprenticeship: gardening, a sweet shop, a tyre manufacturer, abrewery, anything will do. The son, however, does not care for chocolates or beer but dreams of becoming a writer. And of growing up and aquiring the three necessary prerequisites: a wife, a flat and his first novel. But then, just as his mother finds a job for him in a shipping agency, the local newspaper prints one of his pieces. This is the start of a wonderful double life: in dthe daytime he writes delivery notes, in the evenings short articles for the paper. And with his workmate Linda, the young man seems to approach the other side of his dream as well.