comment on structure

The book is divided into eighty very brief chapters, few exceeding four or five pages. The book occurs in a basically chronological order, beginning with Walter's discovery of Kitty's adultery. The exceptions to this are chapters six through sixteen, which give Kitty's family background and her brief history in Hong Kong. These chapters start out by detailing her relationship with her mother, which is the foundation of Kitty's personality and value-system through the majority of the book and explains her attraction, at least in part, to Charlie. It is then described how Kitty came to meet and marry Walter—basically out of a mixture of desperation and convenience—and fell in love with Charlie. Chapters seventeen through twenty-seven finish out Kitty's time in Hong Kong.