Structure

The Far Away Brothers is divided into twelve main chapters, plus an author’s note prologue and an afterword. In between each of the main, numbered chapters, there are shorter chapters that are given a title, not a chapter number. The difference in how these sections are titled reflect their different roles in constructing the book’s alternating narrative. The numbered chapters, of which there are twelve, make up the bulk of the main narrative. They tell the story of the Flores family and are of average chapter-length. The titled chapters are short vignettes that portray other aspects of the migrant experience and the topic of immigration such as the impact of gang violence on girls and women, or the question of a border wall along the US-Mexico border.

The numbered chapters carry readers through the book with a chronological, personal narrative. The vignettes in between them...