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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she encounters teenage twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the weeks that come after, they will rape her, then bury her alive, combination of anxiety and frustration darting across their faces as they ultimately liberate her from her improvised coffin.

This may have functioned as the shocking main event of a novel, but it's merely a single of multiple terrible events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate past trauma and try to discover peace in the present moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other candidates dropped out in dissent at the author's debated views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Discussion of gender identity issues is not present from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of significant issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of traditional and social media, family disregard and abuse are all investigated.

Multiple Stories of Suffering

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow relocates to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages retaliation with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a parent journeys to a funeral with his teenage son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's past.

Pain is layered with suffering as damaged survivors seem fated to meet each other again and again for eternity

Linked Accounts

Links abound. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one narrative reappear in cottages, bars or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound complicated, but the author understands how to drive a narrative – his previous successful Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into numerous languages. His direct prose bristles with thriller-ish hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to experiment with fire"; "the first thing I do when I reach the island is alter my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are drawn in concise, impactful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or perceptive humour: a boy is punched by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap barbs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of carrying you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a genuine frisson, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times practically comic: pain is layered with pain, coincidence on chance in a dark farce in which damaged survivors seem fated to encounter each other continuously for eternity.

Thematic Complexity and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds different from life and more like purgatory, that is element of the author's message. These wounded people are weighed down by the crimes they have suffered, stuck in routines of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has discussed about the impact of his own experiences of abuse and he depicts with compassion the way his characters negotiate this dangerous landscape, striving for solutions – isolation, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "fundamental" concept isn't extremely informative, while the quick pace means the exploration of gender dynamics or social media is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a flawed work, it's also a entirely engaging, trauma-oriented saga: a valued response to the typical preoccupation on investigators and criminals. The author shows how trauma can permeate lives and generations, and how duration and compassion can silence its aftereffects.