Structure

Miami is divided into 4 parts with sixteen chapters in total. Part 1 contains only one chapter, Chapter 1. Part 2 contains Chapters 2 through 7. Part 3 contains Chapters 8 through 14. Finally, Part 4 contains Chapters 15 and 16.

The book’s parts are not clearly delineated by theme or by time period. Its chapters, on the other hand, cover one particular topic at a time, whether that be a conversation Didion had with a specific member of the exile community and the attendant research and information she gathered therefrom, or a research question that interested her and prompted investigation, such as the role of the CIA in Miami Cuban organizing. However, the book’s chapters do not move in chronological order. They are focus on subject matter, and not time, thus including information about the past, for example the 1960s, as well as ‘present-day’ information in which Didion finds herself in Miami speaking to local figures...