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Young Freya is visiting her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the time that follow, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, a mix of anxiety and irritation darting across their faces as they ultimately release her from her makeshift coffin.

This may have functioned as the shocking focal point of a novel, but it's just one of multiple awful events in The Elements, which assembles four novellas – issued distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate previous suffering and try to discover peace in the contemporary moment.

Debated Context and Thematic Exploration

The book's issuance has been clouded by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other contenders dropped out in dissent at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Discussion of trans rights is missing from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of major issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the influence of traditional and social media, family disregard and sexual violence are all examined.

Distinct Accounts of Trauma

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow transfers to a secluded Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a athlete on court case as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages retaliation with her work as a doctor.
• In Air, a dad journeys to a burial with his adolescent son, and ponders how much to disclose about his family's background.

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

Interconnected Narratives

Relationships abound. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to escape 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. Supporting characters from one account resurface in houses, bars or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his prior acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been converted into dozens languages. His straightforward prose bristles with gripping hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to play with fire"; "the first thing I do when I arrive on the island is alter my name".

Personality Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are drawn in brief, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at war with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic 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 trade insults over cups of diluted tea.

The author's ability of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an earlier story a authentic frisson, for the initial several times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is dulling, and at times nearly comic: suffering is accumulated upon pain, coincidence on accident in a grim farce in which hurt survivors seem destined to encounter each other again and again for eternity.

Conceptual Depth and Final Assessment

If this sounds less like life and more like uncertainty, that is element of the author's point. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have endured, caught in patterns of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has spoken about the impact of his own experiences of harm and he depicts with sympathy the way his characters navigate this risky landscape, extending for solutions – solitude, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or invigorating honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "elemental" framing isn't particularly informative, while the quick pace means the exploration of social issues or social media is mainly superficial. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely engaging, victim-focused saga: a welcome riposte to the usual obsession on detectives and perpetrators. The author illustrates how suffering can run through lives and generations, and how duration and compassion can silence its reverberations.