Our Nan Lets Us Smoke Inside: Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

Chapter 5, “Our Nan Lets Us Smoke Inside,” is a compact poem that moves through several connected scenes, each building a portrait of the woman the narrator calls Nan and the family rituals that surround her.

The chapter opens with a domestic scene: Nan permits smoking inside the house, but only under specific conditions — when the family is drinking wine and playing cards at the kitchen table. The narrator describes feeling glamorous as she drops her ash into a pāua shell placed in the middle of the table. This detail establishes the poem's central motif: smoking is not merely a habit here but a ritualized act, one that carries a sense of occasion and belonging.

The poem then offers small, intimate details about Nan's daily life. She wears black leather pumps and dries wishbones from chicken carcasses in an empty margarine container kept on top of the fridge. These details ground Nan in a specific domestic world — frugal, practical, and full of small traditions.

A significant revelation follows: Nan is not the narrator's biological grandmother. The narrator confesses that she has always wished Nan were her real nan, wishing she had been born with Nan's blood in her veins — her dark Waikato DNA, her high cheekbones, and her heavy, wet eyes, which the narrator's sister has. This moment reframes everything that came before: the narrator's attachment to Nan is not inherited but chosen, and it carries a longing for a cultural and physical inheritance she feels she lacks.

The poem then shifts to Nan's history. Nan met her late husband in the late sixties. At the time, she wore a little mod dress with her black hair flipped, while he was a cowboy with mutton chops and tan-lined legs in short cream shorts. He rode a commercial digger to work each morning — a detail that recasts the cowboy image in a working-class, industrial setting. On Sundays, he would pick the children up in his station wagon. Johnny Cash's metronome-like voice would lull them to sleep against the dusty windows, and they would stop for a Filet-O-Fish and a strawberry milkshake. The narrator notes that he always picked her sister up more — a small, telling detail of favoritism that the narrator registers without bitterness.

The chapter then moves to the husband's funeral. The girls carried mismatched flowers, walking behind their brothers, who wore black sunglasses. At the service, the family sang “I hope you're dancing in the sky,” but the narrator describes the singing as painful and flat, sounding like coughing. During the burial, nobody spoke as Nan ashed out a half-smoked cigarette in the fresh, sour soil. In the car park afterward, the family smoked to suppress their tears, using cigarettes like pacifiers.

The poem ends on this image of communal smoking as a form of shared grief — a ritual that binds the family together even in loss.

Key Events

Nan allows smoking inside only during wine-and-cards sessions at the kitchen table
The narrator drops ash into a pāua shell, feeling glamorous
Nan's habits are described: black leather pumps, wishbones drying in a margarine container
The narrator reveals Nan is not her biological grandmother and wishes she were
Nan's backstory: meeting her husband in the late sixties, his cowboy appearance and commercial digger
Sunday routines: station wagon rides, Johnny Cash, Filet-O-Fish and strawberry milkshakes
The husband's funeral: mismatched flowers, brothers in black sunglasses, flat painful singing
Burial: Nan ashing out a cigarette in the soil
Car park: family smoking to hold back tears

Character Development

The narrator: This chapter reveals the narrator's deep longing for belonging. Her wish to have Nan's Waikato DNA and high cheekbones suggests a desire for a cultural and physical inheritance she feels is not fully hers. Her observations — of her sister's eyes, of the way the cowboy picked up her sister more — show a narrator who notices small inequities but holds them without resentment. Her grief at the funeral is processed through the shared ritual of smoking.

Our Nan: Nan emerges as a figure of warmth, ritual, and quiet strength. Her rules (smoking only during cards and wine) are not restrictions but invitations to shared ceremony. Her act of ashing out a cigarette at her husband's burial is a powerful, understated gesture of finality and grief. She is not the narrator's biological grandmother, but she functions as one — the poem suggests that chosen family can be as meaningful as blood family.

The sister: Though barely present, the sister carries symbolic weight. She has the heavy, wet eyes the narrator wishes for — the physical inheritance of Nan's lineage that the narrator lacks. The cowboy's preference for picking her up also marks her as the favored one, though the narrator does not dwell on this.

The cowboy (Nan's late husband): He appears only in memory, but his presence shapes the chapter. His Sunday rituals — the station wagon, Johnny Cash, fast food — are the stuff of the narrator's childhood nostalgia. His funeral is the occasion for the poem's grief.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Smoking as ritual: Smoking recurs throughout the chapter as a binding ritual. It is permitted inside only during card games, it marks the burial (Nan ashing out a cigarette), and it becomes a communal act of grief in the car park. The cigarette is both a comfort and a pacifier — a way of numbing pain.

The pāua shell: The pāua shell is a distinctly Māori object, and its presence at the center of the table during the smoking ritual ties the domestic scene to Māori cultural identity. It is also a container for ash — a small, beautiful vessel for something discarded.

Familial longing and cultural identity: The narrator's wish for Nan's Waikato DNA and high cheekbones speaks to a longing for a specific Māori inheritance. This is not just about family but about identity — the narrator wants to belong to a lineage she admires.

Grief and mourning: The funeral scene is rendered with stark honesty. The singing is painful and flat, the burial is silent, and the grief is expressed through smoking rather than words. The poem suggests that grief is often processed through small, physical rituals rather than grand gestures.

Memory and nostalgia: The Sunday rides in the station wagon, with Johnny Cash playing and the children asleep against dusty windows, are rendered with tender nostalgia. The chapter shows how memory softens and preserves the past.

Generational bonds: The chapter traces bonds across generations — Nan and her late husband, Nan and the children, the narrator and her sister. These bonds are shown as both chosen and inherited.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is a turning point in the collection in that it deepens the narrator's relationship to family and cultural identity. It introduces the idea that family can be chosen — Nan is not the narrator's biological grandmother, yet the narrator's love for her is complete. The chapter also grounds the collection in Māori cultural touchstones (the pāua shell, Waikato DNA) while exploring universal themes of grief, nostalgia, and belonging. The funeral scene, with its flat singing and silent burial, offers a realistic, unsentimental portrait of mourning that resists easy comfort.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does the narrator wish Nan were her “real” nan, and what does this reveal about her sense of identity?

The narrator wishes she had been born with Nan's blood, her dark Waikato DNA, her high cheekbones, and her heavy wet eyes — features the narrator's sister has. This reveals a longing for a specific Māori inheritance that the narrator feels she lacks. It suggests that identity is not only about biology but about the desire to belong to a lineage, a culture, and a set of physical traits that feel meaningful. The narrator's love for Nan is not diminished by the lack of blood relation; if anything, it is heightened by the fact that it is chosen.

2. How does the poem use smoking as a motif, and what does it signify at different moments?

Smoking appears in three key moments. First, it is a ritual of inclusion — Nan allows smoking inside only during wine-and-cards sessions, making it a special, glamorous act. Second, at the burial, Nan ashes out a half-smoked cigarette in the soil, a gesture of finality and release. Third, in the car park, the family smokes to suppress tears, using cigarettes like pacifiers. In each case, smoking is not just a habit but a way of marking time, processing emotion, and binding the family together.

3. What does the funeral scene reveal about how this family processes grief?

The funeral is marked by awkwardness and restraint. The singing is painful and flat, the burial is silent, and the grief is expressed through small physical acts — Nan ashing out a cigarette, the family smoking in the car park. The poem suggests that this family does not grieve through grand displays of emotion but through shared, understated rituals. The cigarettes function as pacifiers, numbing the pain and providing a communal activity that holds the family together in their loss.