Jacob Nossell (24) is intelligent, but hardly fits the picture of a dream child: he suffers from a paralysis of the brain, a congenital physical handicap. It affects not only his powers of speech, but also causes cramps and stiffness. When he speaks, his words cluster together, and when he walks it is with difficulty. With a normal intelligence in a weakened body Jacob is the embodiment of the problem ‘what is normality’: he is too much of an invalid to be fully accepted by society and too ordinary for him to be able to accept his own fate.