Sharp Objects: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Though small towns, Camille says, usually cater to one kind of drinker, “everyone drinks in Wind Gap,” so there are many different places to drink. The one closest to Adora’s home is an expensive upscale French-style eatery called “La Mére.” Though Camille supposes the restaurant is meant to be named “La Mer,” French for “the sea,” its misspelling instead translates to “the mother.” Camille heads there for a drink and runs into Jackie O’Neele and a group of Adora’s friends. The women invite her over to their table to “gab” with them, and Camille reluctantly accepts their invitation.

The women ask Camille what it’s like being home, and they reminisce about their own childhoods spent visiting Adora at her house—one of them remarks that it’s the “same house [with a] different crazy lady running it” now. The women begin discussing Adora’s mother, Joya—they describe her creepy long and unpainted fingernails before one of them, Annabelle, changes the subject and asks Camille about her job reporting on the murders.

Camille asks the women who they all think committed the murders. Jackie says she believes Bob Nash, a “pervert” who always stares at her breasts in the grocery store, is responsible. Another mentions that John Keene has moved out of his parents’ house and into a carriage house in the back of his girlfriend Meredith Wheeler’s family’s home—one of the women asserts that John moved out because he is the killer. 

Camille, remembering what Amma and her friends told her the other day, asks the women if John Keene really could be responsible—she mentions that she heard some gossip from some local teens. Jackie, thoroughly drunk, tells Camille that Amma is trouble. Another one of the women chimes in to add that Amma and all of her friends are sexually promiscuous. Camille attempts to steer the conversation back to John Keene, but Annabelle asks where Adora is and notes that she’s been acting “strange” lately. Jackie tells Camille that she needs to get back to Chicago—the “way things are” with Adora, she’s better off far away.

After brunch, Jackie’s words stick with Camille, and she wonders whether she really should get out of Wind Gap. Feeling buzzed from the wine, she pushes the thought to the back of her mind and decides instead to return to the Nash family’s house. Betsy Nash lets Camille inside, and Camille sits in the disheveled living room with Betsy and Bob as their remaining three children hover around like “ghosts.”

Camille asks Bob and Betsy what Ann was like in school, explaining that she hopes to paint a clearer picture of the girl for a longer, more substantial piece. Bob describes Ann as tough, and Betsy describes her as mouthy and defiant. As the two of them reminisce about Ann, Camille can see the other children, playing in the living room, begin to fight and smack each other, and Camille knows she has “shattered some delicate dynamic” in the Nash household.

As Betsy ushers the children into another room to calm them down, Camille continues asking Bob some questions about Ann’s rumored violent streak, and whether Ann would have gone off into the woods with a stranger—especially if the stranger were a woman. Bob maintains that a man is responsible for the crimes—he can’t picture a woman “doing all…that to a baby.” Bob suggests that John Keene, who has no alibi, might be guilty, and confirms that others in Wind Gap believe he might be responsible for both murders.

Betsy appears suddenly in the doorway and announces that Adora is at the house. Adora breezes into the living room, apologizing to the Nashes for Camille’s intrusion. Bob admits he had no idea that Camille was Adora’s daughter, and Adora says he wouldn’t—Camille isn’t “the family type.” Bob asks why Camille wouldn’t have told him who she was—he reveals that Adora is a “very good friend” to their family, and she tutored Ann in English and spelling. Ann and Adora, Bob says, were very close.

Camille realizes that her mother hasn’t, in fact, been overplaying her mourning—she really was close with both girls. Camille wonders why Adora was tutoring Ann; though Adora had helped out at Camille’s school when she was young in order to get to know some of the other Wind Gap mothers, Camille thinks it strange for Adora to be helping out such a young girl from a less-advantaged family.

Adora tells Camille to leave—she’s here on a “social visit” and has trouble relaxing around Camille “these days.” Camille says she isn’t finished talking to Bob, but Adora insists she is. Camille feels the word punish flash on her hip. She thanks Bob for his time and leaves without looking at Adora. She begins crying before she even gets to her car.