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Twelve-year-old 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 time that follow, they violate her, then inter her while living, blend of anxiety and irritation darting across their faces as they ultimately release her from her makeshift coffin.

This may have functioned as the shocking main event of a novel, but it's just one of many horrific events in The Elements, which collects four short novels – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate previous suffering and try to find peace in the present moment.

Disputed Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's publication has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other nominees withdrew in objection at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.

Discussion of gender identity issues is not present from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of conventional and digital platforms, parental neglect and assault are all explored.

Multiple Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a isolated Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on court case as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya balances retaliation with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a dad flies to a funeral with his young son, and ponders how much to divulge about his family's history.

Suffering is piled on trauma as damaged survivors seem fated to bump into each other again and again for eternity

Related Stories

Connections proliferate. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one story resurface in houses, taverns or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author is skilled at how to propel a narrative – his prior popular Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been translated into dozens languages. His direct prose bristles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I reach the island is modify my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Power

Characters are drawn in concise, powerful lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes echo with tragic power or insightful humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of transporting you completely into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a authentic excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: trauma is accumulated upon pain, chance on accident in a grim farce in which hurt survivors seem doomed to meet each other again and again for eternity.

Conceptual Complexity and Final Assessment

If this sounds different from life and more like limbo, that is aspect of the author's thesis. These wounded people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that stir and descend and may in turn harm others. The author has discussed about the influence of his own experiences of harm and he depicts with sympathy the way his characters traverse this risky landscape, reaching out for treatments – solitude, frigid water immersion, forgiveness or bracing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't particularly informative, while the rapid pace means the examination of social issues or social media is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a entirely readable, victim-focused chronicle: a appreciated riposte to the usual obsession on detectives and perpetrators. The author illustrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how time and care can soften its aftereffects.