Structure

Saroo Brierly divides his memoir A Long Way Home into thirteen chronological, numbered, and titled chapters preceded by a Prologue and succeeded by an Epilogue. The Prologue acts as a way to hook the reader’s attention with Saroo’s first return trip to India in which he seeks to find his family. Upon arriving, he finds that his childhood home has been abandoned and his family is gone. The reader is confronted with a host of questions, including just who Saroo is and why he has lost his family.

The memoir then shifts back in time between Chapters 1 and 13, wherein Saroo recounts the events of his life, focusing heavily on his childhood and being lost in India. The search to find his family as an adult is recounted later in the novel.

The Epilogue takes place in the present, and it details things that have happened...