 Presuming each layer to be a true telling within the overall story, a chain of events is created linking Adam Ewing's embrace of the abolitionist movement in the 1850s to the religious redemption of a post apocalyptic tribal man over a century after the fall of modern civilization.The characters in each nested layer take inspiration or lessons from the stories of their predecessors in a manner that validates a belief stated in the sixth tale that "Our lives are not our own.We are bound to others, past and present and by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future."