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Young Freya spends time with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that come after, they will rape her, then bury her alive, blend of nervousness and frustration passing across their faces as they ultimately release her from her makeshift coffin.

This might have stood as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to achieve peace in the present moment.

Controversial Context and Thematic Exploration

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

Discussion of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of significant issues. Homophobia, the impact of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and abuse are all explored.

Four Stories of Suffering

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow moves to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on trial as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya juggles vengeance with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a dad flies to a burial with his teenage son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's background.

Pain is accumulated upon trauma as damaged survivors seem doomed to bump into each other continuously for all time

Related Narratives

Connections proliferate. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's jury 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 reappear in houses, bars or legal settings in another.

These narrative elements may sound tangled, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been rendered into dozens languages. His direct prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Character Portrayal and Narrative Strength

Characters are portrayed in brief, impactful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or observational humour: a boy is struck by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange barbs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an prior story a real thrill, for the initial several times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times nearly comic: suffering is accumulated upon trauma, accident on coincidence in a bleak farce in which damaged survivors seem destined to meet each other repeatedly for all time.

Conceptual Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds less like life and closer to limbo, that is aspect of the author's thesis. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that churn and spiral and may in turn damage others. The author has spoken about the impact of his personal experiences of mistreatment and he depicts with understanding the way his cast navigate this perilous landscape, striving for treatments – solitude, frigid water immersion, resolution or refreshing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't extremely informative, while the quick pace means the examination of gender dynamics or social media is mostly superficial. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a thoroughly readable, victim-focused saga: a appreciated response to the common obsession on investigators and criminals. The author demonstrates how trauma can affect lives and generations, and how time and care can soften its aftereffects.