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Young Freya stays with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that follow, they violate her, then bury her alive, blend of nervousness and irritation darting across their faces as they eventually release her from her makeshift coffin.

This might have stood as the jarring focal point of a novel, but it's just one of multiple awful events in The Elements, which assembles four short novels – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate past trauma and try to find peace in the current moment.

Debated Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the preliminary list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other nominees pulled out in protest at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Conversation of trans rights is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and abuse are all explored.

Distinct Accounts of Pain

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow moves to a secluded Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on trial as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya juggles revenge with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a dad flies to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's past.

Suffering is piled on trauma as damaged survivors seem destined to bump into each other continuously for all time

Interconnected Accounts

Connections multiply. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one account resurface in houses, pubs or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound tangled, but the author is skilled at how to drive a narrative – his previous popular Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been converted into many languages. His straightforward prose bristles with gripping hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to toy with fire"; "the initial action I do when I arrive on the island is alter my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are drawn in brief, effective lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes echo with tragic power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap insults over cups of watery tea.

The author's knack of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a real excitement, for the first few times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is numbing, and at times almost comic: suffering is piled on suffering, accident on chance in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem destined to bump into each other again and again for forever.

Thematic Complexity and Final Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and closer to limbo, that is aspect of the author's thesis. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has spoken about the impact of his individual experiences of harm and he depicts with understanding the way his ensemble traverse this risky landscape, reaching out for remedies – solitude, icy sea dips, reconciliation or refreshing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "fundamental" concept isn't extremely informative, while the brisk pace means the examination of gender dynamics or social media is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a thoroughly accessible, victim-focused epic: a welcome response to the usual obsession on detectives and perpetrators. The author shows how suffering can run through lives and generations, and how years and tenderness can quieten its reverberations.