Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses alcohol addiction, drug abuse, violence, domestic abuse, rape, suicide, and racist language.

Beth Heke gives an overview of her life as she observes the Trambert estate from her kitchen window. She muses over how she sometimes feels like a spy, watching over people—her own family and the Tramberts, a rich, white family who seem to have so much more luck than the Māori in the state-controlled neighborhood of Pine Block where Beth and her family live. She comments on how she feels old at the young age of 34 and recalls having dreams for herself and her husband, Jake, when she was young, including having their own home for their family outside of Pine Block. These dreams were quickly dashed away by “a few hidings – from the man sposed to be part of the dream” (2). She deems her life to have been hell for the better part of the last 16 years while married to Jake.

As she wonders at what kind of life the Americans on TV have, her thoughts catch on the idea of books: how she and everyone in her community are without them, and what effect being bookless might have on her, her children, and her people.