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Twelve-year-old Freya spends time with her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they advise her, "is having one of your own." In the time that follow, they will rape her, then bury her alive, blend of anxiety and irritation flitting across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her improvised coffin.

This might have stood as the jarring main event of a novel, but it's only one of numerous terrible events in The Elements, which assembles four novellas – published distinctly between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate historical pain and try to achieve peace in the current moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a significant LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other contenders pulled out in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Debate of trans rights is not present from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of big issues. Homophobia, the influence of traditional and social media, parental neglect and sexual violence are all examined.

Multiple Narratives of Trauma

• In Water, a grieving woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the grown-up Freya balances vengeance with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a parent flies to a memorial service with his young son, and wonders how much to divulge about his family's background.

Pain is piled on trauma as wounded survivors seem destined to encounter each other again and again for all time

Related Narratives

Connections abound. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one story reappear in cottages, taverns or courtrooms in another.

These narrative elements may sound complicated, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his earlier acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been converted into dozens languages. His businesslike prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should know better than to play with fire"; "the first thing I do when I come to the island is alter my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

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

The author's talent of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a authentic excitement, for the initial several times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times practically comic: pain is accumulated upon trauma, coincidence on coincidence in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem fated to encounter each other continuously for forever.

Conceptual Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds less like life and more like limbo, that is part of the author's message. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have endured, caught in routines of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has talked about the influence of his individual experiences of mistreatment and he depicts with sympathy the way his characters negotiate this perilous landscape, extending for solutions – solitude, cold ocean swims, resolution or invigorating honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't extremely informative, while the brisk pace means the discussion of gender dynamics or social media is primarily surface-level. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a entirely accessible, victim-focused epic: a welcome riposte to the typical fixation on authorities and criminals. The author shows how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how years and compassion can quieten its aftereffects.