Structure

A River in Darkness is divided into five chapters with an additional prologue and epilogue. The prologue is quite short at only two pages, while the epilogue is relatively longer at seven pages. In contrast to these short sections, the book's chapters are all quite long, ranging from 19 to 37 pages. The author's choice to structure the book into five relatively long chapters may reflect his early assertion in the manuscript that, throughout his life, he has been "born again" five times. However, the times in his life when he was reborn don't necessarily occur once in each of the five chapters. Instead, the book is punctuated and structured by the repetition of the phrase "Born again." which appears in Chapters 2, 4, and 5, as well as in the epilogue. Combined with his literal birth in Chapter 1, these five events never-the-less make the number 5 significant in the life of the...