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Young Freya spends time with her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they advise her, "is having one of your own." In the days that ensue, they will rape her, then bury her alive, a mix of anxiety and irritation passing across their faces as they finally liberate her from her temporary coffin.

This may have functioned as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's merely a single of many awful events in The Elements, which assembles four novellas – published separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to achieve peace in the current moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other candidates dropped out in objection at the author's controversial 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. Homophobia, the effect of conventional and digital platforms, parental neglect and sexual violence are all investigated.

Distinct Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on trial as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a father journeys to a memorial service with his teenage son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's history.

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

Linked Narratives

Connections abound. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, partners with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one narrative resurface in homes, pubs or courtrooms in another.

These plot threads may sound tangled, but the author knows how to power a narrative – his previous acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been converted into dozens languages. His straightforward prose bristles with thriller-ish hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to toy with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is modify my name".

Character Development and Storytelling Power

Characters are drawn in concise, effective lines: the empathetic Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes echo with sad power or insightful humour: a boy is hit by his father after urinating at a football match; a biased island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour exchange barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's knack of bringing you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a real excitement, for the opening times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is dulling, and at times almost comic: suffering is accumulated upon suffering, accident on chance in a grim farce in which wounded survivors seem doomed to encounter each other repeatedly for eternity.

Conceptual Complexity and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds different from life and closer to purgatory, that is part of the author's point. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that stir and spiral and may in turn damage others. The author has spoken about the effect of his individual experiences of abuse and he portrays with compassion the way his cast traverse this perilous landscape, striving for remedies – isolation, icy sea dips, reconciliation or refreshing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "basic" framing isn't particularly educational, while the brisk pace means the exploration of sexual politics or digital platforms is mainly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a thoroughly accessible, victim-focused epic: a appreciated riposte to the usual preoccupation on authorities and criminals. The author shows how pain can permeate lives and generations, and how time and compassion can silence its echoes.