Mai lives with her new family in the place where she grew up. Here she has also found the home of her dreams, an old house calculated to provide her with the security and peace of mind she craves. Her son Inge is trapped between his parents, who, after an acrimonious court case, are no longer on speaking terms. He too is in search of security and a sense of belonging, but meets only people who are neither qualified to care for him nor capable of understanding that he is still a child. Instead he finds himself in the grip of unfamiliar new emotions that are both frightening and confusing.

A Shelter for the Night deals, among other things, with the difficulties involved in being, at one and the same time, both a parent and someone”s son or daughter; and of how a child is in ever-present danger of inheriting the lives of the generation above him.