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Young Freya is visiting her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she meets teenage twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they violate her, then entomb her breathing, a mix of nervousness and annoyance passing across their faces as they eventually liberate her from her temporary coffin.

This might have stood as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's merely a single of numerous terrible events in The Elements, which collects four novellas – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront past trauma and try to discover peace in the present moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's issuance has been overshadowed by the presence of Earth, the second novella, on the longlist for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other contenders dropped out in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of significant issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the influence of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and sexual violence are all examined.

Four Narratives of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a secluded Irish island after her husband is incarcerated for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on legal proceedings as an accomplice to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya balances revenge with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a father flies to a memorial service with his adolescent son, and wonders how much to reveal about his family's background.

Suffering is piled on trauma as damaged survivors seem fated to encounter each other repeatedly for eternity

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Connections proliferate. We initially encounter 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, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one narrative return in houses, taverns or judicial venues in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his previous acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been converted into many languages. His straightforward prose sparkles with suspenseful hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the initial action I do when I arrive on the island is modify my name".

Character Development and Storytelling Power

Characters are sketched in succinct, powerful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes echo with melancholy power or perceptive humour: a boy is hit by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of watery tea.

The author's knack of transporting you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an prior story a real frisson, for the opening times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is desensitizing, and at times almost comic: trauma is accumulated upon suffering, chance on chance in a dark farce in which wounded survivors seem destined to bump into each other repeatedly for all time.

Conceptual Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds less like life and more like uncertainty, that is aspect of the author's message. These hurt people are weighed down by the crimes they have suffered, caught in patterns of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has spoken about the influence of his own experiences of mistreatment and he describes with compassion the way his cast navigate this perilous landscape, extending for treatments – isolation, cold ocean swims, reconciliation or bracing honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "elemental" framing isn't extremely informative, while the quick pace means the discussion of social issues or digital platforms is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a thoroughly readable, victim-focused chronicle: a valued riposte to the typical fixation on investigators and criminals. The author illustrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how time and compassion can quieten its aftereffects.