39 pages • 1 hour read
Seamus DeaneReading in the Dark
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapter 6 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
People in Small Places, June 1958
Once, Katie told the narrator a story about an experience that Tony had while working as a bus conductor. In the story, a man named Sean travels on Tony’s bus, and he carries a briefcase that contains only one baby sock. Sean explains, “The day I find its match, I stop all this travelling” (220). His infant daughter died, and Sean believes that she will not be able to enter paradise until he finds the matching sock.
Crazy Joe and Mother, October 1958
After he gets out of an asylum, Joe often visits the narrator’s mother. During one of these visits, he “cavorted and performed,” talking about his time in the asylum and the abuse he suffered from the male nurses (223). One day he says, “But for all that, missis, for all that, I never told them your story” (223). The text does not clarify what this story is, but it suggests that the story was the fact that the narrator’s mother dated Tony.
Mother, November 1958
The narrator’s mother seems to know that the narrator has discovered her history with Tony, and “She kept up a low-intensity warfare” (225).
