What is the author's style in Tambourines to Glory by Langston Hughes?

Tambourines to Glory is a short novel, barely one hundred pages in the Collected Works of Langston Hughes edition, yet it is divided into thirty-six chapters, several just over a page long. Most of the chapters are self-contained, small glimpses into brief moments in the lives of the characters. Chapter 1, for example, is six pages long and takes about fifteen minutes to read (if one sings along with the characters); it describes a conversation that would last about fifteen minutes in "real life." The only background information, after a two-sentence exposition that identifies the day as Palm Sunday, is provided by the characters as they speak to each other. Throughout the novel, there is little explanation or reflection from the narrator, only the briefest description of settings, and no extended internal monologues. Sixteen chapters begin abruptly with one of the characters speaking or singing; twenty-two end this way. A few chapters begin with brief tag lines that identify the passing of time ("The next morning," "The winter prospered them," "When June came"), but changes in Essie's and Laura's fortunes and behavior are communicated directly by their speaking or their actions.

The novelist Henry James (1843—1916) frequently structured his novels this way, and Hughes may have been inspired by his work. More likely, the structure of Tambourines to Glory arises from the fact that it was a play before it was a novel. Although the play version comprises only thirteen scenes, the novel echoes the play's reliance on foregrounded speech and action, rather than on reflection or exposition, to carry the plot and theme forward.