The stories in this book dream and shift as darkly as the muddy river the brother characters are so obsessed with. The repeating, though shifting and flowing, elements seem different for a group of stories. Some stories are different, but some are altered versions of previous stories that do something different than the previous version. Even when the stories are different, certain lines show up over and over, like the refrain in a song that won't leave my head. It's dark, it's mud, and dear god do a lot of people's heads get cut off. This is all just my take on it, of course. Regardless, this is an interesting book.