The novel is divided into twenty short chapters or segments, each of which is narrated in the first person. There are fifteen different narrators, ten black and five white (this is fewer than the number of chapters because Lou Dimes narrates four chapters, and Snookum and Sully two each). Dimes is given four chapters probably because Gaines thought him well suited, as a journalist, to report on events. Dimes supplies much objective information, since he adopts a fairly neutral stance, favoring neither the old men nor Mapes. The segments are also arranged with pacing and emotional tension in mind. Gaines stated in an interview that he tried to arrange the narratives of the different black men for variety. He wanted to avoid having two highly emotional segments following in.....
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